‘Precatory proposals’: this phrase from Purgatory has quickly entered the lexicon of those defending access to non-binding shareholder resolutions. Its users should wash their spell checkers out with soap.

‘Precatory proposals’, as I wrote a few weeks ago, is a phrase apparently invented by Leo E. Strine, Jr. Strine is a lecturer at Harvard Law School and a judge in Delaware, and he is no friend of non-binding resolutions. He’d like to see them abolished.

So, those who’ve adopted the phrase – which sounds very legal, very precise – should know what ‘precatory’ means and implies.

In fact, ‘precatory’ is a word used by lawyers. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th ed., it means, ‘Having the nature of a prayer, request, or entreaty; conveying or embodying a recommendation or advice or the expression of a wish, but not a positive command or direction.’

Now that’s a fair enough description of what a non-binding shareholder resolution is about. But ‘precatory’ has an implication that goes beyond a prayer or an entreaty.

According to my favorite dictionary, The American Heritage, 4th ed., ‘precatory’ means: ‘Relating to or expressing entreaty or supplication.’ (The Oxford English Dictionary (1971) definition is virtually identical.)

It’s the last word in The American Heritage definition that carries the sting. ‘Supplicate’, the Oxford English Dictionary says, means ‘To beg, pray, or entreat humbly…’

Begging: that’s what ‘precatory’ implies –shareholder advocates have the same relation to what they are asking for as a street person has to spare change, the same relation Oliver Twist has to the gruel.

Do we as shareholder advocates see ourselves as a small, undernourished child tremulously asking the workhouse master, “Please, sir, I want some more.” I think not.

Words matter. We’ve seen what ‘death tax’ has done to inheritance taxes. We can’t let this happen to us.

Purge ‘precatory proposals’ promptly.