Idiom 'Give someone the benefit of the doubt'

[Haihao]

Hi,

I tried to reword the idiom 'Give someone the benefit of the doubt' as:

1. Give someone the 'benefit side' of the doubt as if doubt had two sides (possibilities): relevant or irrelevant. So if we give the 'benefit side' then we take up the favorable and ignore the 'detriment of the doubt' for the sake of the person.

2. Simply benefitting someone by nulling the doubt because a doubt is a doubt after all.

Which one is more relevant or both are not? Thank you.

Sorry for the trivia and often being a curious cat.

haihao

[Alan]

Hi,

I wouldn't really be happy with either. To me this is simply letting 'doubt' play a part in your opinion/decision and thereby not making a negative judgement. This is very much a principle in a jury system where the jurors (in England and Wales) have to make a pronouncement of 'guilty' or 'not guilty'. Having served on a jury some years ago I remember the value of this 'benefit' as one of the cases concerned a very serious crime and the leading thought was that if we were not totally sure that the accused was guilty, we should declare that the accused was not guilty.

A
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