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I was just writing something on a platform with an international audience and use the expression "written off" to describe a car that was no longer usable and wondered how universal the term really is. HiLo48 (talk) 22:46, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Common as muck here in Britain. DuncanHill (talk) 23:12, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Its use is not truly universal, but mainly restricted to the Anglosphere. As the past participle of the verb write off, it has also less total senses in bookkeeping (as in, "62 percent was written off as uncollectable").  ​‑‑Lambiam 00:34, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I worked in the insurance industry here in Australia for a while, and that's the meaning there. I just wondered about the usage in countries with different approaches to such things. HiLo48 (talk) 00:45, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Very common in South African English. The Afrikaans translation is "afgeskryf" which literally means "off-written". ~2025-39889-34 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 05:08, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Common in the U.S. and Canada. As in: after the accident, the car was a complete write-off. As mentioned, the usage comes from insurance and accounting. Xuxl (talk) 15:35, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Outside the Anglosphere, an equivalent term exists in the German language, ie ab-schreiben. The meaning seems identical, it can be used formally in a fiscal context (to write off an investment over n years as an expense, reducing taxes; mentioned by user:Lambian) and colloquially for an item which has lost any value and usage (as used by user:HiLo48).

Note that abschreiben can also mean to copy, generally in an literary context (as in Luke and Matthew have abgeschrieben from evangelist Mark). --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:25, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also Swedish "avskriva", I believe. To copy is "skriva av". But the phrasing might be less common outside of Germanic languages. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:30, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be confused with the weird latter-day journalistic construction "sign off on", which means approve (as distinct from plain "sign off", which usually means to say goodbye). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:49, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A car that is written off may still be perfectly usable. My previous car was written off when somebody pulled out in front of me, but I continued to drive it for another six months. It merely means that the (other party's) insurer won't pay for repair because the cost exceeds (or exceeds 3/4 of) the value of the car. The insurer wrote off the car as a total loss, paying me £900 for it and letting me buy it back for £38 (which I omitted to pay (and I later got £90 for it as scrap)). catslash (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those two words mean the same thing, right? So was the phrase combining them invented at the Department of Redundancy Department? I am not seeking legal advice. (Article: Cease and desist). ~2025-39770-07 (talk) 00:59, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has an article on everything, including Cease and desist. There it explains that "The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. Clicking on that link for Legal doublet will take you further into this rabbit hole. HiLo48 (talk) 01:15, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have heard that cease means stop it and desist means don't start it again. —Antonissimo (talk) 02:27, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's basically it. It's kind of subtle. "Cease" obviously means "stop". "Desist" is used to mean "refrain".[1][2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:49, 11 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is called the Office of Pleonasms and Redundancy. Using words and terms that are not strictly necessary and, being redundant, might as well be omitted, deleted, and left out, since they do not add or increase information beyond the words and terms that have already been used, means more billable time for the lawyer.  ​‑‑Lambiam 01:20, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Somehow strikes me as an auctioneer technique. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:45, 12 December 2025 (UTC) [reply]

The exact wording of laws are determined by people serving as legislators, not as lawyers (though they are usually both), and at least in the UK this process is usually subject to expert scrutiny and adjustment before the laws are passed.

As has already been discussed above, words which may loosely mean the same thing to a layperson, often in law have more precise and different meanings, and the use of both may be necessary to avoid loopholes in laws: having done so, there is less scope for a lawyer to argue that a client has or has not actually broken the letter of a law.

The recent populist fad for distaining the expertise of specialists more educated and knowledgeable than oneself should not be encouraged in an encyclopaedia (I suggest). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 14:43, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To restate what Antonissimo said, cease means stop it if you're doing it, and desist means don't start if you're not doing it. That would seem to cover everything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:00, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the meanings of desist as given in dictionaries:

• An American Dictionary of the English Language (1913 Webster): To stop; to cease to act or proceed; to forbear.
• OED (1933): To cease (from some action or procedure); to stop; leave off, give over forbear.
• Collins: If you desist from doing something, you stop doing it.
• Merriam–Webster: to cease to proceed or act.
• Longman: to stop doing something.
• Wiktionary: To cease to proceed or act; to stop (often with from).

 ​‑‑Lambiam 17:20, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, de-cease refers to the cessation of heartbeat and brain activity. It seems to be the same as ceasing heartbeat and brain activity. De-sist is a derivate from the Latin sistere (= to stop). De-sist, sist, de-cease and cease then appear to be synonyms of identical semantic value.

BTW. sist is listed as a Scottish legal term for a stay in legal proceedings, so the verb / noun is in usage. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given the broader meaning of "desist", it would seem that "cease" is a subset of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An argument for using cease and desist is that not everyone knows the meaning of desist.  ​‑‑Lambiam 04:27, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Legalese. Reminds me of the story about a guy who told his lawyer he didn't have a will. The shocked lawyer said that without a will, he could die intestate! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:20, 15 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A shame nobody can come up with a citation to a legal text explaining it. Very entertaining to read everyone's speculations though. DuncanHill (talk) 15:48, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Speculation" by the authors of a number of dictionaries. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:40, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of which actually explains the legal usage. OED lists "cease" as one of the meanings of "desist", and "desist" as one of the meanings of "cease". What we need is a proper legal explanation of the wording, not a bunch of ill-informed amateurs like you and me speculating based on the dickers we happen have to hand. DuncanHill (talk) 21:46, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Someone could look for a "legalese" dictionary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:48, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you receive a court order to return equipment you borrowed from your neighbour, you do not need a "proper legal explanation" of the term "return", neither from ill-informed amateurs nor from a Professor of Law. Likewise, if you receive a court order to cease and desist from dumping your garbage in your neighbour's backyard, there is IMO no need to seek professional legal advice in order to decipher the meaning of this cryptic bit of legalese. Another question than how to explain the meaning of this wording is how this came to be such a fixed phrase. A court order might just as well state that you should "immediately stop" doing this, which would be just as clear, so one may also wonder whether there is another reason than custom for not doing so.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:13, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WE're not looking for the meaning of the phrase, we are looking for the reason for it. DuncanHill (talk) 14:34, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the 'reason for it' is no more than when the relevant laws were written, every literate person knew what 'cease' meant (stop doing this thing immediately) and everybody knew what 'desist' meant (don't keep doing it in the future). It's not arcane legalese, it's just formal language of an earlier time. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2025-31359-08 (talk) 19:30, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But we don't know that. We don't know that there are laws that say that. And no, it's not formal language of an earlier time because nobody has actually demonstrated that. There's a lot of WP:SYNTH in the thread above, and absolutely no relevant citations. We haven't even "proved" that cease is not a synonym of desist - but we have had a citation that it is. We've made up an answer that, by selective use of dictionaries could be made to make sense. We've done nothing of any encyclopaedic value whatsoever. DuncanHill (talk) 19:50, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As the dictionary entries copied above show, such as, "If you desist from doing something, you stop doing it", they are basically synonyms. The oldest use in a Google Book Search is from 1747,^[3] where it is not even part of a legal order but a hopeful result, so as legalese this is, apparently, not terribly ancient. What I do find as earlier phrases are "cease, desist and leave off from" (1709)^[4] and "cease, desist and abstain from" (1740).^[5]  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:10, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've been watching clips of River Monsters and I've noticed that presenter Jeremy Wade sometimes arranges his phrases so that the word that appears at the end. I don't have a specific example, but it would be something like "A red-bellied piranha, that." or "A common meal among these people, that." Is this just his own idiolect or are there places where that's standard? He's from Ipswich, but is obviously very well-traveled and could have picked up it anywhere. Matt Deres (talk) 15:31, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not uncommon in informal British English. DuncanHill (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A long-established construction, that. OED illustrates it with a string of usages going back to 1795, the earliest being "Miss Plin. Last night three minutes before twelve, I ascended the expecting couch. Mr. Fash. Very happy expression that!". --Antiquary (talk) 18:41, 21 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The American version is "True dat." Clarityfiend (talk) 08:27, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is a casual, idiomatic phrase in the US "and all that" which can end a sentence. I suspect that the British usage is a shortened version. Cullen328 (talk) 08:42, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Something similar exists in colloquial Australian English, though it's becoming more rare. A neighbour of mine, of mature years like me, finishes a lot of his sentences with "and that". It's mostly a filler, adding little extra meaning to the sentence. He grew up in Williamstown, an old port suburb of Melbourne. Whether being a port is relevant, I don't know. HiLo48 (talk) 09:04, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To me, it feels like a clipping of "that is", as in "One happy, full-bellied piranha that is, if we ever saw one."  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:55, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please, please help me. I cannot find this word anywhere else besides the sentence, ‘Of subterranean wind transprots a hill’ in Book 1 of Paradise Lost. Is this a typo no one fixed? Is this an archaic spelling? Why can’t I find any other records of it?

VergilSparkles (talk) 13:40, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a typo. What edition are you using? Wikisource has "transports" here. Johnson's Dictionary here has "transports". DuncanHill (talk) 14:32, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm certainly not a fan of the original sprot either, and I welcome all mutations of this type. I used to consistently mis-read the brand name on an extractor fan as 'Exelpair', and it was 30 years before I saw another one, and realised it was an 'Expelair'... Anyway, my favourite London Transprot is this one, of delight. MinorProphet (talk) 19:07, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The edition published by ‘Duke Classics’. I was also seeing it in a lot of ‘reader’s guides’ and spark notes versions without any comment on the typo. VergilSparkles (talk) 20:47, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The same typo occurs in this 2008 edition by The Floating Press (NZ). Alansplodge (talk) 23:03, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Expecting contemporary students to spot errors will only lead to disappointment. For all the marvels (whatever they may be) of our wonderful modern education systems, detail is definitely something that's never focussed on. Add that to the lack of training in the fundamentals of our language, and it's no wonder that spelling and grammar have gone down the tubes. Hence, only old persons such as I ever notice errors (you may be the rare exception). But there's a good side: it gives us some joy in the autumn of our years to comment ceaselessly on the shocking decline of standards, exactly as we were taught to do by our parents, who seemed to have similar views on our generation when we were younger. Strange, that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:48, 23 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]