Talk:Outlaw/Archive 1

Archive 1

Examples removed

An example of such criminals would would the famous Xodus and Snyper who became famous after years of being chased by the law and never being caught.

removed from the lead because Xodus and Snyper, whoever they are, do not appear to be all that famous. —Charles P. (Mirv) 22:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody have a cite for this 'couthutlaugh' word? I can't find any references to it anywhere.

I think it's someone having a couthutlaugh at our expense; zero Google references besides copies of this page. Ergo, removed. I haven't bothered looking it up in real books; couthutlaugh person, please cite your sources. Kiscica 20:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

...On second thought, I checked the history and found that the article has referred to 'couthutlaugh' since its creation by Ihcoyc; it seems highly unlikely that he would have intentionally introduced a spurious word. I am going to leave a message at his talk page asking for clarification; I still feel that a citation needs to be given if such an exceedingly obscure word is to remain in the article. Kiscica 21:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, so the word is real; I found it (as couthutlaughe) in the OED:

[app. an early ME. repr. of an OE. cú{th} útla{asg}a known outlaw.] A term applied, according to Bracton, to a person knowingly harbouring or concealing an outlaw; or perhaps, more properly, to the offence of doing so. c1250 BRACTON III. II. xiii. (Rolls) II. 336 Talem [exulem] vocant Anglici utlaughe..[Utlagatus] aut potest esse notus et cognitus vel ignotus et incognitus; et unde qui notum et cognitum receptaverit pari p{oe}na puniendus est, qui dicitur Couthutlaughe [MSS. v.rr.: see above]. 1607 COWELL Interpr., Coutheutlaughe is he that willingly receiveth a man outlawed..and hideth him. [Hence, 1641 in Termes de la Ley, 1656 BLOUNT, and later Dicts.] [Known only in loc. cit.; the OE. term represented is not recorded. It is not easy to comprehend that the term ‘known outlaw’ could originally designate the harbourer; prob. the word is the fragment of a phrase designating the harbouring of a known outlaw; it has been suggested that the meaning might be ‘acquaintance or familiar of an outlaw’, but this would be in OE. útla{asg}an cú{th}a, or perh. cú{th}a útla{asg}an.]

It's awfully obscure, though -- entirely confined to legal dictionaries, if I read the above right. Kiscica 23:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This would almost be the legal version of a Nihilartikel. There seems to be little evidence that the word was ever used by practicing lawyers to designate an outlaw's accomplice. It got into an ancient treatise, and duly copied from the thirteenth century forward. Since Bracton is quoting an Anglo-Saxon word in Latin, and may have misunderstood or bungled it, its status as a legit English word is iffy as well. It can safely be omitted; it's one of those obscure bits of trivia that sticks in the mind, and that's how it got into the article from the beginning. Smerdis of Tlön 04:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Definition

The following text seems contradictory:

the word literally means "outside the law", by folk-etymology from the original meaning "laid outside" of the Old Norse word útlagi, from which the word outlaw was borrowed into English.

How can it both literally mean outside the law AND be derived from a foreign word with a different meaning? Tnolley (talk) 17:05, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm seconding this objection, and changing the article to match. Of note is part of the etymology given in the OED for law:

adapted from prehistoric ON. *lagu (:—O.Icel. lҩg), pl. of lag neut.; in sing. the word meant in OIcel. ‘something laid or fixed’ (specific senses being, e.g. ‘layer, stratum’, ‘share in an undertaking’, ‘partnership’, ‘fixed or market price’, ‘set tune’, etc.); the pl. had the collective sense ‘law’, and in ONorw. its form became (as in OE.) a fem. sing.;

In other words, if utlagi was formed by combining ut- with the singular form lag, then the Old Scandinavian meaning would indeed have been "something laid outside". But according to the OED, it's from ut- + the plural lҩg, which would mean "outside of the law":

outlaw, noun & adjective < early Scandinavian (compare Old Icelandic útlagi, noun, útlagr, adjective, Old Swedish utlagha, noun) < the Scandinavian base of Old Icelandic út- OUT- prefix + the Scandinavian base of Old Icelandic lҩg (plural) LAW n.1

If the OED is correct, then there's no folk-etymologizing going on in the morphing of the Old English utlaga to the modern outlaw; rather, as its components changed over time, the combined form changed along with them. At no point was there a difference between the perceived meaning of the word and its roots, as there was with hangnail, for example.

The Sans-Ponz reference may well give a solid reason to preferring the singular lag over the plural lҩgas the original OIcel. source, but unless someone can provide that reasoning to us here, it seems that the reference to folk-etymologizing should be removed.--76.121.3.11 (talk) 19:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Jesus of Nazareth

Is Jesus of Nazareth listed as an outlaw as a joke? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.48.65.134 (talk) 20:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Removed 81.48.150.202 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:37, 20 July 2009 (UTC).

Bonnie and Clyde

Surely they qualify?

89.243.180.137 (talk) 12:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Grand Theft Auto 4

There was a line in there about "students have been saying 'fucking like bandits'. This is derived from a radio station in Grand Theft Auto 4."

I deleted it because a)at the very least it does not belong before the table of contents and b) folks have been saying that MUCH longer than GTA4 has been out.

173.30.50.235 (talk) 19:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Suspiciously Odd Names

Currently in the article are names:

1. Jack the Arsecrammer[citation needed]
2. Mery Ann Butt[citation needed]
3. Moondyke Joe[citation needed]

Don't know about the third, but the first two look an awful lot like joke names to me.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.151.208.102 (talk) 00:58, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

An outlaw might be killed with impunity?

Unfortunately I don't have a source for this, but in a book I read on the history of the common law many moons ago, outlawry originally allowed anyone to kill the outlaw with impunity, like a wild beast, but it soon became the case that one could kill an outlaw they came across only if they attempted to flee. Maybe someone with better research skills than I can find a source for that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.227.149.117 (talk) 01:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

"Bandit" is slang?

"The term "bandit" is now largely considered to be part of the English slang lexicon"

In what sense is the word "bandit" slang? (Other than in contexts that have nothing to do with this subject?) Wardog (talk) 09:54, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Does Nelson Mandela qualify as an outlaw?

Currently Mandela is listed as an outlaw. But the article on the man doesn't say anything about him being outlawed by any government. D(r)ead End (talk) 11:05, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Quite right - I can find no evidence that he was ever an outlaw, so I have removed the mention of him. It looks to me as though many of the other entries listed should be removed too, but I don't have time now to check them all. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:15, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

split

This article should discuss the legal concept, not the popular use of the term in modern times. The "outlaws" listed, from the American West etc., were not literally "outlaws", they were just fugitive felons. Being an outlaw does not mean that you consider yourself outside of the law and do anything you please, it means that the law has declared that you are no longer elegible for its protection. This was a very real possibility until the 17th or 18th century. By the 19th century, felons were punished by the law, but at the same time they were still protected by the law. --dab (𒁳) 12:02, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The article has developed since September 2010, but in one area where there are still problems are in the images. Fugitive felons, although called outlaws in popular culture, were not outlaws, so images such as File:Jesse and Frank James.gif should not be used unless they were declared outlaws. -- PBS (talk) 18:29, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed; the "Old West Outlaws" and "Gangs of Outlaws" are pop culture ideas rather than legal concepts. I'd like to see more input in what to change because I am not an expert in law or that particular period of history and I don't want to include personal research. Hard to find sources related to this but I can find nothing that classifies Jesse and Frank James, for example, as legal outlaws. --Rotellam1 (talk) 20:23, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

/* Alternate use */ "out-law" as a kind of in-law

In a little searching online I could find no evidence of "outlaw" or "out-law" being used to refer to a more indirect kind of in-law. Has anyone else encountered this usage? Perhaps the usage is mostly in colloquial spoken speech, or facetious, and so hard to find. Other languages such as Arabic seem to have specific terms for more remote kinds of in-laws.CharlesHBennett (talk) 22:46, 24 July 2012 (UTC)