Changing Language: What Is a Loophole?
Part of Changing Language, a series about how public English shifts, hardens, and leaves old objections behind. Call an intentional workaround a loophole and some people still react like you just misused a technical term in court. They hear the word and insist it must refer only to a drafting defect, an omission, or a badly written law. That objection is not crazy. It is just too narrow for the way the word actually works now. ...