“Withstanding” and “notwithstanding” words banned from legal documents

“Notwithstanding” is probably the most irritating English word I have encountered. The prefix “not” implies that you can take it to mean the opposite of “withstanding”. But what does withstand mean? That’s fucked up too.

For whatever reason, I grew up thinking that to withstand meant how it sounds -- to “stand with” something. To tolerate it or accept it. But it’s also counter-intuitive. All my real life encounters with withstand seem to contradict the dictionary, which actually says to withstand something is to resist it. WTF? Thus:

“notwithstanding” ≠ “to not stand with”

I had an embarrassing moment where I used “notwithstanding” in a legal context to mean to something like possibility A does not tolerate possibility B. But it means the opposite of that. “Notwithstanding” is a synonym for “nevertheless”.

Anyway, I wonder if other folks have been burnt or confused by this word, or was it just me. In any case, fuck that word. It commonly appears in legal documents and likely causes confusion and misinterpretation.

So new rule:

All words matching the “withstand” glob are hereby banned from legal statutes and contracts. Anyone who drafts a contract with that word shall automatically be subject to the interpretation that works against them in any contract dispute.