Definition
A drafting phrase appearing in wills and conveyances, used to identify and re-refer to a previously named beneficiary or grantee. The phrase functions as an anaphoric designation — that is, it points back to a specific individual already introduced in the instrument, typically identified by name, and ensures that subsequent clauses, devises, or limitations attach to that same person without ambiguity. In testamentary construction, precision in identifying the intended recipient was a matter of legal consequence: a misdescription, ambiguity, or failure of identification could defeat the gift entirely.
The phrase "to the said A" typically operated as shorthand in an instrument where "A" had been previously named in full. The word "said" (equivalent to "aforesaid") was a term of art confirming that the reference was to the same person previously described, not to a different person bearing the same name or a similar designation.
Common Confusion
Researchers should not confuse the anaphoric function of "to the said A" with the technical use of "A" as a placeholder in legal formularies and hypotheticals. In formulary texts and legal education, "A" conventionally represents a generic first party. In an actual instrument, "to the said A" means a specific, named individual previously identified. Misreading a reported case that quotes an actual will as if it were using "A" generically can produce significant interpretive errors.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is a navigational artifact of older testamentary and conveyancing drafting rather than an independent legal doctrine. Researchers encountering "to the said A" in historical instruments should understand it primarily as a construction phrase whose meaning depends entirely on context — specifically, who was named earlier in the document.
The significance for corpus research lies in several directions. First, when historical cases turn on whether a devise or limitation was good, the phrase often appears in the reported instrument, and courts were required to determine whether "the said A" successfully identified a living, ascertainable person capable of taking. Second, the phrase connects directly to problems of latent ambiguity: if two individuals sharing the same name or description appeared in a will, the question of which one was "the said A" required extrinsic evidence. Third, researchers should be alert to the truncated nature of Rapalje & Lawrence's entry — "to the said A" is listed alongside similarly brief will-construction phrases (TO THE TWO OLDEST CHILDREN, TO THEM, TO USE AND IMPROVE), suggesting the compilers were cataloguing interpretive problems rather than providing full doctrinal treatments. The real substance lives in the cases cited, not in the dictionary entry itself.
When tracing related construction problems in historical sources, researchers should note that the Digest and early American reporters treated will language with considerable formalism. A phrase that appears anodyne today — simply pointing back to a named person — could generate litigation over whether the limitation was absolute, conditional, or whether subsequent language modified or cut down the gift.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is minimal to the point of being a citation placeholder. The compilers list "TO THE SAID A" with a single citation to 8 Com. Dig. 476, situating it among a cluster of similarly brief entries on testamentary language. Comyns' Digest (Com. Dig.) was a leading English authority on the construction of legal instruments, and the reference to volume 8 places this in the digest's treatment of wills and devises.
The companion entries in the same passage are instructive for understanding what kind of authority Rapalje & Lawrence are collecting: TO THE TWO OLDEST CHILDREN cites 3 Pick. (Mass.) 213; TO THEM cites 9 Watts (Pa.) 351, 352; TO USE AND IMPROVE cites 2 Root. These are all phrase-construction cases from American reporters, organized by the operative words in the instrument at issue. The methodology is concordance-like — locate the phrase, find the relevant authority — rather than analytical.
What the historical dictionaries miss entirely is any account of why the phrase generated interpretive difficulty. The deeper issue, visible only by reading the underlying authorities, is the intersection of designation and limitation: in some instruments, "to the said A" introduced not merely identification but carried implications about the nature of the estate granted, particularly when followed by words of inheritance or words of restriction.