“ A legal doublet is a standardized phrase used frequently in English legal language consisting of two or more words that are near synonyms, usually connected by "and", and in standard orders, such as "cease and desist".
The doubling—and sometimes even tripling—often originates in the transition from use of one language for legal purposes to another… To ensure understanding, the terms from both languages were used. This reflected the interactions between Germanic and Roman law following the decline of the Roman Empire.”
This is interesting. I've always worked off the assumption that while english legal documents look like english they are actuallysomething a little special. These words get tested in court cases and opinions are written about them and what them mean. So, in this case my assumption (possibly incorrect) had been that each of those words had specific legal meaning, and perhaps a venn diagram would show 95% overlap of the sets, by using both words they get 100% overlap.
(Its also why lay people shouldn't write their own contracts, because a lawyer with contract experience won't use words that haven't been tested.)
Cease - Latin to cessare meaning "to yield", then Old French.
Desist - Latin to stare (sta-re, not homonym of stair) meaning "to stand", then (still) Latin to "sistere" meaning "to stop" plus prefix de, which in this context is "an order (from top, aka court) to down (aka to you)", then Old French.
Huh.
So this is basically court-enforced stop and yielding to the other party.
My law professor told me it was a temporal phrasing: stop doing it (cease), and don't do it in the future (desist). Otherwise I could stop for one day, or in the age of the internet one minute, and then begin again: I would have ceased and resumed.
