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Which is more accurate: "The president signed the bill..." or "The president signed the law..."?

Update:

This is not a social studies question so I should have clarified what I am looking for. The assumption is that I am referring to a U.S. President signing a bill/law.

Using the past tense signed I am implying this happend in the past. Which means the item in question is currently a law, however at the time of signing it was still a bill.

This is a question about tenses more than anything else.

RegDwigнt
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iambriansreed
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3 Answers3

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Until the president signs it, a bill is not a law. It is only a bill.

That is not to say you can never refer to a thing as if it already was in one state before that state has come to be. That's called prolepsis.

prolepsis
n
2 the representation of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so, as in he was a dead man when he entered.

NOAD

So if you said the president signed the law, you could be using a rhetorical figure. But in most cases, you wouldn't need to be so fancy.

Robusto
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  • damn your faster fingers. ;-p – Hellion Sep 25 '12 at 21:44
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    But signed is past tense meaning the signing has already taken place meaning it is now a law. – iambriansreed Sep 25 '12 at 21:45
  • This isn't prolepsis, this is just a statement about the past describing things as they are in the present. It's really no different from something as ordinary as "Jack built the house." (Whatever he built, it wasn't a house until he was done.) – David Schwartz Sep 26 '12 at 00:37
  • @DavidSchwartz -- it's different in two ways: the law before it was signed was a definite thing, a bill, but the house was a vague collection of building supplies and plans; and, the act of signing is so brief as to be a point in time, but Jack can continue working long after the building site can be fairly called a house. – Michael Lorton Sep 26 '12 at 00:50
  • @DavidSchwartz: The example given in the dictionary citation uses past tense as well. – Robusto Sep 26 '12 at 01:46
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    @user405662: No, because it is written in a future form from the position of someone who is past that point in history. Prolepsis would be stating from one point in time that something to come is already accomplished: – Robusto Feb 21 '21 at 15:53
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A bill is what gets proposed and passed by Congress and presented to the President.

Assuming that he approves of it, the President signs the bill; sometimes you may hear that he signed the bill into law, because it becomes a law by virtue of having been signed.

Edit based on your update:

It was a bill when the president signed it, so you call it a bill because you are referring to what it was at that point in time. (If the pizza I ate last night has now been fully processed and excreted by my digestive tract, I do not say "Yesterday I ate feces.")

Hellion
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If he signed a bill, the first is more accurate, if he signed a law, the latter.

The details of what presidents do with regard to bills and laws in their respective countries fall more into the realm of a law discussion than one of the English language.

Dominic Cronin
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  • You're missing the point: in the US, when the President signs a bill, by that act, the bill becomes a law. – Michael Lorton Sep 26 '12 at 00:47
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    No @Malvolio, you are missing the point. We don't come here to discuss law or the making of it. Even someone with no knowledge of US culture could have inferred that process from the original question, but the question was not about law making but about English. Anyway - FWIW. The thing he signs isn't a law until he has signed it, so when he signs it, it is a bill. – Dominic Cronin Sep 26 '12 at 17:46
  • Given that, Dominic, which is more accurate: “The president signed the bill…” or “The president signed the law…”? "Obama signed the APA." "He signed a bill?" "Yes." "What is APA?" "A law." – Michael Lorton Sep 26 '12 at 18:40
  • The question specifically asks which is the most accurate, so obviously, this is "he signed a bill". I don't think any of us have any doubt that you could easily say either, though. – Dominic Cronin Sep 26 '12 at 19:07
  • Obama did sign APA and APA is a law, not a bill. – Michael Lorton Sep 27 '12 at 03:31
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    It was a bill – Dominic Cronin Oct 02 '12 at 14:06