John Doe
an anonymous person
TRANSLATION
John Doe = fiktiver männlicher Name in Gerichtsvorgängen, wenn der richtige Name nicht bekannt ist, John Doe (ugs.) = Otto Normalverbraucher --- GOOGLE INDEX John Doe: approximately 3,500,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
A man identified by Asheville police as JOHN DOE 918 faces a charge of trafficking in cocaine.
(The Asheville Citizen Times)
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In its high-profile legal showdown with the Zurich bank, the IRS is employing a legal tool known as a JOHN DOE summons, which allows it to investigate tax fraud by individuals whose identities are unknown because of bank secrecy.
(www.alibaba.com)
(The Asheville Citizen Times)
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In its high-profile legal showdown with the Zurich bank, the IRS is employing a legal tool known as a JOHN DOE summons, which allows it to investigate tax fraud by individuals whose identities are unknown because of bank secrecy.
(www.alibaba.com)
Did you
know?
John Doe
noun phrase
- used as a name in legal proceedings to designate an unknown or unidentified man or boy
- an average or ordinary man
(American Heritage Dictionary)
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WORD ORIGIN
John Doe is used as a pseudonym for a male party in a legal action, case or discussion, whose true identity is either unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons.
The name also refers to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown. This practice is widely used in the United States and Canada, but is rare in other English-speaking countries.
In his book "What's in a name?", Paul Dickson says the John Doe custom dates back to the reign of England's King Edward III, during the legal debate over something called the Acts of Ejectment. This debate involved a hypothetical landowner, referred to as John Doe, who leased land to another man, the equally fictitious Richard Roe, who then took the land as his own and "ejected," or evicted, poor John Doe.
These names — John Doe and Richard Roe — had no particular significance, aside from "Doe" (a female deer) and "Roe" (a small species of deer found in Europe) being commonly known nouns at the time. But the debate became a hallmark of legal theory, and the name John Doe in particular gained wide usage in both the legal world and as a generic stand-in for any unnamed person.
The name Jane Doe is commonly used as the female equivalent.
(sources: Wikipedia, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins)
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"The person I'm referring to, let's call him John Doe, will need to be properly trained for this assignment ."
noun phrase
- used as a name in legal proceedings to designate an unknown or unidentified man or boy
- an average or ordinary man
(American Heritage Dictionary)
---
WORD ORIGIN
John Doe is used as a pseudonym for a male party in a legal action, case or discussion, whose true identity is either unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons.
The name also refers to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown. This practice is widely used in the United States and Canada, but is rare in other English-speaking countries.
In his book "What's in a name?", Paul Dickson says the John Doe custom dates back to the reign of England's King Edward III, during the legal debate over something called the Acts of Ejectment. This debate involved a hypothetical landowner, referred to as John Doe, who leased land to another man, the equally fictitious Richard Roe, who then took the land as his own and "ejected," or evicted, poor John Doe.
These names — John Doe and Richard Roe — had no particular significance, aside from "Doe" (a female deer) and "Roe" (a small species of deer found in Europe) being commonly known nouns at the time. But the debate became a hallmark of legal theory, and the name John Doe in particular gained wide usage in both the legal world and as a generic stand-in for any unnamed person.
The name Jane Doe is commonly used as the female equivalent.
(sources: Wikipedia, Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins)
---
SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"The person I'm referring to, let's call him John Doe, will need to be properly trained for this assignment ."
