Imply and infer are not the same thing!
JUSTICE SCALIA: Webster’s Third, as I 14 recall, is the dictionary that defines “imply” 15 “infer” -
MR. FRIED: It does, Your Honor -
JUSTICE SCALIA: — and “infer” to mean 16 17 18 “imply.”
It’s not a very good dictionary. (Laughter.)
We know how Scalia thinks of dictionaries.
I did a quick search, and it seems the Supreme Court has cited Webster’s Third 183 times, most recently in Brown v. EMA (Alito), Tapia v. US, Stanford v. Roche (Roberts), Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting (Roberts), Brown v. Plata (Kennedy), FCC v. AT&T, and Holder v. HLP. It is quite popular.
And speaking of dictionaries, NIno rushes to the defense of his co-author, Bryan Garner!
MR. HIMMELFARB: I mean, I guess I just have
12 to dispute that. We have Webster’s, which, you know,
13 Justice Scalia’s view notwithstanding, is viewed by many
14 people as an authoritative dictionary of English
15 language. We have got Black’s Law Dictionary which I
16 think everyone agrees is the leading law dictionary,
17 which provides as a definition of “interpreter” the
18 broad definition that we advocate here. To be sure -
19 JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, I guess Black’s Law
20 Dictionary which — the editor of it is a — is
21 co-author with me, so I — I feel obliged to spring to
22 his defense -
23 (Laughter.)
24 JUSTICE SCALIA: Since itisalaw
25 dictionary, presumably it ought to have taken into
1 account the cases you are referring to, many of which
2 use the word in — in this sense, right?
3 MR. HIMMELFARB: That’s true.
4 JUSTICE SCALIA: Like Garner.