Orthogonal argument

A rule of thumb in legal writing is if you have to look up a word, it's the wrong word to use in your brief. The point being that you should KISS (keep it simple stupid) and not distract with fancy words.

Apparently it's a whole different story in oral argument. A law professor (go figure) arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court dropped the word "orthogonal," which means, right angle, unrelated, irrelevant. Because the Justices had no idea what the word meant, it turned into an "orthogonal" sidebar about the meaning of the word. This turned out to be a brilliant piece of advocacy, because it let the professor get a special connection with the Justices, and he had a couple jokes ready to go. I would bet money the professor had planned the whole exchange in preparing his oral argument.