Lex Ferenda

Anthony Cummins at the Guardian books blog wonders whether acknowledgements (in novels, in particular) go too far. Do they?

On academic thank-yous, I’ve always liked this one from the “World’s Greatest Law Review Article” parody:

(this is the first footnote)

*Professor of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I would like to thank Lawrence Tribe, Sandra Day O’Connor, Richard (I like to call him “Rick”) Posner, Judge Lance Ito and a lot of other legal personalities with good name recognition. They didn’t have anything to do with this article, but there’s no law that says I can’t thank them just for being them in this important space for name-dropping. Special thanks to the editors of the Harvard Law Review for their hard work, unless they never bothered to read my submission, in which case I hope they spend eternity lost in a Sisyphean supra-infra citation loop. Finally, no introduction would be complete without thanking everyone for their “helpful comments,” including Lisa, the waitperson at Vino’s Bar in Little Rock, who suggested I move my laptop computer before someone dumped a pitcher of beer on it.

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