The real meaning

10 legal terms that are often misunderstood

The popularity of legal movies and TV shows has resulted in people becoming familiar with terms and concepts they wouldn’t know otherwise, but it has also contributed to some mistaken ideas about what some of these terms mean. Is a waiver just a simple permit? What does free speech really entail? When does something qualify as hearsay? Here are 10 legal concepts you’ve probably heard before but might not mean what you think they do.

As any American knows, freedom of speech is an inalienable right, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But what does this mean? Freedom where or from whom? Many interpret this right as a freedom to express their mind everywhere and anywhere, but this is not exactly correct. Free speech is the guarantee we have as citizens that the government cannot censor, restrain, or interfere with our free and public expression. When it comes to private establishments and contexts, or to speech that might lead to harm to others, the right to free speech is not absolute.

Slander is a form of defamation, that is, damaging someone’s reputation by spreading false statements about them. But are all forms of defamation the same? There are many ways to spread false information or statements, but the law makes two main distinctions: whether or not it’s recorded or written down. While "slander" is a term we might hear often in legal shows, it refers strictly to spoken defamation, meaning an oral remark or statement, or a broadcast that was not recorded. For anything written down, published, or recorded, the proper term is "libel".

Many people think that waivers are similar to permits, so signing a waiver would be akin to giving your consent for something. While a waiver requires consent, it is not a simple permit. As its name suggests, it implies waiving or giving away something. In this case, a right. If you sign a liability, contractual, or any other type of waiver, you are willingly giving up a known right, privilege, or claim, which cannot be invoked later.

Whether something was done with malice or not might be the difference between a lesser or greater charge, both in civil and criminal law. But what is malice? In its legal sense, malice is not ill will or evilness, but the intention to cause harm or do something illegal without cause or justification. While mitigating circumstances such as accidents or spontaneous emotion might result in a lesser charge, malice will always increase the severity of the situation.

You might have heard this term in relation to car insurance, workers’ compensation, or divorce and wondered if it meant that no one was responsible. While there might be situations where no one’s to blame, this is not what no-fault systems are about. In many legal cases, determining the responsible party is necessary to resolve the case or award compensation. In a no-fault system, however, the law focuses on resolving the dispute rather than assigning blame, settling matters without needing to prove who is responsible.

Affidavits are quite common in all sorts of legal procedures, but their use in TV shows might make them seem as something that is only used in court. An affidavit is a written statement that the signer swears to be true, under penalty of perjury, and that is signed in front of a notary who can verify their identity. While affidavits can be presented in court in replacement of in-person testimony, they are also used in business, financial matters, official applications, and many other proceedings.

In everyday talk, we understand "hearsay" as information that you heard from someone else and are unable to verify. Legally, hearsay is slightly different, as it refers to written or spoken statements made outside the court that are presented as evidence. As the person who made the statement is not present to swear their veracity, hearsay is usually not admissible as proof, but the court might decide to accept it anyway if the situation requires it.

Unlike civil cases, criminal cases require that guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt to convict the accused. But what is reasonable doubt? The law is not asking the jury or judge to be 100% certain or to not have any shred of doubt left, but that they are firmly convinced by the evidence presented, with no other logical explanation. If their common sense and the evidence (or lack thereof) make them hesitate or admit a logical alternative, it means that the case was not proven "beyond a reasonable doubt", in which case the law gives the accused the benefit of the doubt.

It is common for people to group burglary with other criminal acts such as theft or robbery, but it belongs in a separate category. While robbery or theft involve taking someone else’s property without consent (i.e., stealing), burglary is the act of entering a place illegally to commit a crime inside. Why is it commonly associated with stealing then? Because most burglary cases involve theft.

We are used to referring to most illegal acts as crimes or offenses, but these terms strictly belong to criminal law. When it comes to civil law, which deals with private wrongs towards people and their property, the correct term is "tort", defined as a wrongful act that causes harm, loss, or injury to another person and that leads to legal liability, meaning that the person who committed the act is held responsible, whether it was intentional or not.

Translation and interpretation

Was the forbidden fruit really an apple? 10 Bible surprises

What if some of the Bible stories you grew up with aren't exactly what the Bible says? Was the forbidden fruit really an apple? Were there actually three Wise Men? Did "God helps those who help themselves" really come from the Bible? Over centuries, translations, traditions, and famous works of art have added details that became so familiar, we stopped questioning them. But go back to the texts, and some of these stories look surprisingly different. From Eve's "apple" to the date of Jesus' birth, here are 10 familiar parts of the Bible that may not be quite what we remember.

When you picture the Garden of Eden, what fruit comes to mind? Most people imagine an apple, but there's just one problem: the Bible never says it was an apple.

In the Book of Genesis, the fruit is simply called "the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." The original Hebrew text uses the word peri, which simply means "fruit." The apple connection came centuries later, largely through the Latin translation. The Latin word malum can mean both "apple" and "evil," making it an especially fitting symbol for the story. Over time, that association spread through Christian art and literature. Famous works such as Albrecht Dürer’s 1504 engraving Adam and Eve (also known as The Fall of Man) helped cement the image of Eve holding an apple. Today, it's one of the most famous scenes in history, even though the original biblical text doesn’t identify the fruit as an apple at all.

The story of Jesus' birth is so famous that most of us picture the Three Wise Men, sometimes called the Three Kings, standing beside the manger. But the thing is, over the centuries, the story picked up a few details that aren't actually in the Bible.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel that mentions these visitors, they are described simply as Magi from the East. The original Greek word, magoi, referred to learned scholars, astrologers, or priests from Persia or Babylon, not kings. But where did the number three come from? Matthew lists three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but never says how many visitors brought them. Over the centuries, people naturally assumed there must have been three Magi, one for each gift. Even their familiar names, Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar, were added later by Christian tradition. So, neither the number of visitors nor their names appears anywhere in the biblical text.

Whether it's used to motivate a friend, encourage a family member, or push yourself to finally make a difficult decision, "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the most familiar religious sayings in America. But here's the surprise: those words never appear in the Bible.

The idea can be traced to ancient Greek sources, including Aesop’s Fables, where the saying appears in an earlier form: "The gods help them that help themselves." The exact modern wording was written by English politician Algernon Sidney in 1698, but it was Benjamin Franklin who helped make it part of American culture when he included it in his 1736 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack.

Many teenagers have heard "Cleanliness is next to godliness" when it was time to clean their rooms. But despite sounding like a Bible verse, the phrase never appears in Scripture.

The Bible, particularly Leviticus, does contain extensive laws requiring people to wash their bodies and clothes in certain circumstances, especially before religious rituals. But the famous saying itself came much later. In 1605, Francis Bacon wrote in The Advancement of Learning that "cleanness of body" was connected to reverence for God. Then, in 1786, it was Methodist leader John Wesley who used the wording we recognize today in a sermon: "Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness." Over time, the phrase became a familiar saying that many people simply assumed came from the Bible.

When it comes to famous dates, December 25 may be the most recognizable of all, universally associated with Christmas. But here's the surprising part: the Bible never gives any specific date for Jesus' birth.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe the Nativity but never provide a calendar date, so how did December 25 become Christmas? There are two leading theories. The first is that the Roman Church was celebrating Christmas on December 25 by 336 AD, during Constantine's reign, possibly choosing the date to coincide with existing Roman winter festivals and make it easier to convert the empire to Christianity. The second points to an early Christian tradition that calculated Jesus' birth date from the supposed date of his crucifixion, eventually arriving at December 25.

The story of Jonah and the Whale is so famous that it has appeared literally or symbolically in innumerable works of art and literature, from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512) to Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. But there's a small problem with the title we've given it: the Bible doesn’t actually say it was a whale.

In the Old Testament, the original Hebrew text of Jonah 1:17 uses the words dag gadol, meaning "great fish" or "large fish"; it doesn't identify the creature as a whale, or even specify what kind of fish it was. Most modern English translations therefore stick with "great fish," but the familiar "whale" interpretation developed through older translations and later European tradition, eventually becoming so widespread that "Jonah and the Whale" became the name almost everyone recognizes.

Just as we've always pictured the forbidden fruit as an apple, many of us also assume the serpent in the Garden of Eden is the devil himself. But the original story is a little more complicated.

A plain reading of Genesis depicts the creature simply as a serpent or snake, using the Hebrew word nachash. It describes the serpent as clever and crafty, but it never calls it Satan or explicitly identifies it as the devil. So where did the connection come from? The answer comes from later parts of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. In Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, Satan is called "the ancient serpent" (ho ophis ho archaios in Greek), connecting him to the snake of Eden. Over time, Christian tradition applied that later connection back to Genesis, leading to the familiar belief that the serpent was Satan himself.

Many of us remember Samson for his legendary strength and the long hair that was said to be the source of his power. His story with Delilah is one of the Bible's most famous tales of betrayal, but there's one detail some people may have gotten wrong: Delilah didn't actually cut his long hair.

In Judges 16:19, Delilah has Samson's hair shaved while he sleeps on her lap. The text says she called for a man to do the shaving; it never says she did it herself. Yet paintings, films, and other retellings have often shown Delilah wielding the scissors herself, cementing that image in popular culture. It can be considered a small detail, but it’s a great example of how easily familiar Bible stories can pick up elements that aren't actually in the original text.

Many of us think of the Bible as a single book, written at one particular time by one author, or perhaps a handful of them. After all, that's how it looks when you pick one up in a hotel room, but its history is far more complicated.

The Bible is actually a collection of books written by over 40 authors over roughly 1,500 years, from about 1400 BC to AD 100. The exact number of books varies by religious tradition: Protestant Bibles contain 66 books, while Catholic and Orthodox traditions include additional books. Across these different traditions, the writings were produced by kings, prophets, fishermen, and scholars in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They also span a tremendous range of literary styles, including history, poetry, songs, laws, letters, and prophecy. So while we hold it as one book today, the Bible is actually a collection of many different writings produced across centuries.

Many people assume that at least a few original fragments of the Bible must still exist somewhere. It would be incredible if they did, but none of the original manuscripts, known as autographs, have survived.

The earliest biblical texts were written on fragile materials such as papyrus and animal skins, which could deteriorate through humidity, heat, handling, and simple age. Wars, fires, and other destruction also contributed to their disappearance. So how do we know what the originals said? Through a technique called textual criticism: expert scholars compare thousands of handwritten copies, ancient translations, and quotations from early Christian writers. When they find passages that match across different sources, or differences that reveal how a text changed over time, they can work backward to determine what the original most likely said, even though the original manuscripts themselves are gone.