Review: 'Framed as an introduction, Hutton's book is much more than that. It is a masterpiece of lucidity in telling the stories of classic legal disputes over meaning from the US, Hong Kong, the UK and India, and associating each dispute with the linguistic dilemma that caused the disagreement and the legal culture that resolved it. For those who care about the law, the human mind, or both, it is a wonderful book to read.' Lawrence M. Solan, Brooklyn Law School, USA 'An authoritative and lively commentary on the range of considerations (including linguistics and lexicology, philosophy of language, ethics, sociology, and matters of policy) which bear on judges' efforts to be inspectably fair and reasonable in their descriptions (hence their classification) of particular contentious things and acts. Enlivened by a range of fascinating case-studies. Invaluable for students and practitioners of the law, but an intellectual feast also for anyone interested in grappling with the interpretive difficulties - which simply cannot be left intractable and unresolved, however suspect the decision may be - that senior judges face.' Michael Toolan, University of Birmingham, UK.