
Technicality, n.:
	In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having
	accused a neighbor of murder.  His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt
	hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one
	side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the
	other shoulder."  The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the
	court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder,
	for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an
	inference.
		-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
