The Plain meaning rule, also known as the literal rule, is one of three rules of statutory construction traditionally applied by English courts. The other two are the “mischief rule” and the “golden rule.”
The plain meaning rule dictates that statutes are to be interpreted using the ordinary meaning of the language of the statute, unless a statute explicitly defines some of its terms otherwise. In other words, the law is to be read word for word and should not divert from its ordinary meaning.
The plain meaning rule is the mechanism that underlines textualism and, to a certain extent, originalism.
Read more about Plain Meaning Rule: Meaning, Reasons Favored, Criticism, British History, See Also
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—Yevgeny Yevtushenko (b. 1933)
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—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The earliest instinct of the child, and the ripest experience of age, unite in affirming simplicity to be the truest and profoundest part for man. Likewise this simplicity is so universal and all-containing as a rule for human life, that the subtlest bad man, and the purest good man, as well as the profoundest wise man, do all alike present it on that side which they socially turn to the inquisitive and unscrupulous world.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)