An antonym for "loophole"

January 11, 2005 3:39 PM

Wanted: an antonym for "loophole." Yes, I've spent an hour or more on Google. Sense needed: Where a loophole is an ambiguity in a law or regulation that, like a knothole in a plank, allows something to get through that should have been stopped. The term I'm looking for would describe this:

-- a state corporate/business code/law/regulation that exempts the owner/manager/director from almost all personal responsibility/liability for the actions of the business -- but that has one remaining offense for which, if the business gets convicted, the state court may hold the owner, manager or director personally liable.

The sense is one plank of the fence left standing; one tooth left in the watchdog's mouth, or something like that. It's scary where Google leads, looking for this -- into the history of how laws are made with great fanfare then eroded and dismantled and undercut to where they accomplish almost nothing.
posted by hank to Writing & Language (26 answers total)

caveat.

I got nothin.
posted by plexiwatt at 3:48 PM on January 11, 2005

Where a loophole is an ambiguity in a law or regulation that, like a knothole in a plank, allows something to get through that should have been stopped ...

Wouldnt the opposite be a "catch" or caveat? As in .... sounds great... except there's one "catch"
posted by vacapinta at 3:48 PM on January 11, 2005

I thought perhaps caveat might do the trick - which led me to injunction and proscription and then, finally, proviso which seems to fit your meaning the best.
posted by contessa at 3:50 PM on January 11, 2005

My vote goes to proviso.
posted by ludwig_van at 4:02 PM on January 11, 2005

Not to be pedantic, but next time "more inside" would be appropriate. I like proviso, too.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 4:06 PM on January 11, 2005

You mean something like you're allowed to conflugalize your offog, but --NOT-- if you're wearing a top hat at the time, in which case you'll be killed and made into Soylent Twizzlers?

If so, I'll second catch. Sure, you can do this, but there's a catch... Directors can't be prosecuted for the actions of the company, but there's a catch.

Or just an exception. Directors are generally immune, but there is an exception for certain kinds of offog conflugalizers.

Neither of them has the right connotation, though.

I think you'd have to coin a new phrase. I'll nominate "last plank" or "lone plank". Or, if the audience is familiar with their Simpsons lore, "Ol' Chopper."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:17 PM on January 11, 2005

I, too, think you may have to coin a new phrase. I think the "one tooth in the watchdog's mouth" does it nicely.

ROU_X, I think I'm in love with you. Offog indeed.
posted by Specklet at 4:35 PM on January 11, 2005

"Catch" popped into my head immediately, too. "We're almost in the clear/home free, but there's one catch." The image that it conjures in the mind is exactly what you're after, I think.

(And, exactly the opposite of what RikiTikiTavi says. You laid out the info succinctly on the front page, which is best.)
posted by planetkyoto at 5:12 PM on January 11, 2005

Offog, just in case. Actually, Allamagoosa.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:13 PM on January 11, 2005

I've heard situations similar to this referred to as "traps for the unwary" or "foot faults" -- those aspects of the law that receive less scrutiny and analysis for one reason or another, that are possibly counterintuitive or that are simply not well known (e.g., burried deep in a regulation).

In your example, most people know what a shareholder of a business has limited liability. The trap for the unwary is impermissibly commingling personal affairs with that of the corporation. If a shareholder commits that foot fault, he or she might have personal liability for corporate debts.

However, to a legal audience, these would not work because the concept in your example is just too fundamental. However, I think they would probably be fine for a different audience.
posted by probablysteve at 5:15 PM on January 11, 2005

"Proviso" and "caveat" don't quite capture it. I think you have to go for a neologism. My vote:

noose

It captures the gist of what you describe, and has the added benefit of also being somewhat analagous to "loophole." As in "tried to slip through a loophole, but got caught in a noose."
posted by googly at 5:16 PM on January 11, 2005

(And, exactly the opposite of what RikiTikiTavi says. You laid out the info succinctly on the front page, which is best.)

To be fair, I was going to make the same complaint; the original post was much longer and needed a (more inside), but it was edited down.

And in regard to the question, I don't see how proviso is inadequate. "A clause in a document making a qualification, condition, or restriction."
posted by ludwig_van at 5:51 PM on January 11, 2005

A pitfall is a sort of trap for the unwary. You more often see them mentioned in the plural, though.
posted by coelecanth at 6:04 PM on January 11, 2005

Half-hearted wild-ass attempt: blindspot
posted by Gyan at 6:36 PM on January 11, 2005

I call this kind of thing a "gotcha," but there's no particular legal connotation to that.

I'm trying to find a way to make a portmanteau out of "fist" and "stipulation..."

Fistulation?
posted by scarabic at 6:49 PM on January 11, 2005

Ooh, I like noose.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:43 PM on January 11, 2005

It may not be what you're looking for in the general case, but the concept you've outlined is "piercing the corporate veil".
posted by Caviar at 8:06 PM on January 11, 2005

Another vote for noose, here.

I guess there really isn't a word for it, though languagehat hasn't arrived yet.

Also, the metaphor is even a bit better if they fix the loophole -- and catch someone in the noose.
posted by zpousman at 8:14 PM on January 11, 2005

The word you are looking for is "loophole."

"Loophole" is a matter of perspective. If you like the exception, you call it something nice, like "provision" or "proviso." If you don't like it--and especailly if you want to argue that it was a mistake--you call it a loophole.

From the point of view of the owner/manager/director in your example, this thing is surely a loophole, because it sucks for him. From the point of view of someone who benefits by it, why, it's just a law.
posted by profwhat at 8:22 PM on January 11, 2005

Sounds like you might want to use the word "variance" from your more detailed description, since it means an exemption from a specific part of a law, but not necessarialy all of it. But perhaps not.
posted by shepd at 8:24 PM on January 11, 2005

Achilles' Heel.

You're welcome.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:14 PM on January 11, 2005

I was thinking "loophole" too. I'm not a legal philosopher, but I see all laws as restrictions. A law allowing one thing is simply restricting everything else. The unexpect or obscure thing that is allowed, there's the loophole. I'd be curious to know if there is a specific legal term for loophole which isn't such a loaded word.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 11:42 PM on January 11, 2005

The metaphor that comes most easily to mind, for me, is booby trap. The meaning seems immediately clear: the booby gets trapped.

A close legal concept seems to be the writ of attainder, prohibited by the Constitution. Congress declined to fine President Clinton for the Lewinsky affair, ostensibly because it would constitute a bill of attainder -- a law applying to a single person.
posted by dhartung at 11:58 PM on January 11, 2005

"Hundredth Window"?
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:57 AM on January 12, 2005

Isn't this just an "exception" or "qualifier"?
posted by miniape at 8:32 AM on January 12, 2005

Sorry, scarabic, fistulation is already a real word: an artificial duct from the outside of the body to an internal organ, like a tracheotomy.
posted by adamrice at 10:00 AM on January 12, 2005