letter of the law

The precise wording rather than the spirit or intent. For example, Since it was the first time he'd broken the rules, the school decided to ignore the letter of the law and just give him a warning . [Late 1500s]

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Yo'ash	-	Biblical Hebrew
Melania	me-LAHN-yah (Polish)	Italian, Spanish, Polish, Late Roman
Vlastislav	-	Czech, Medieval Slavic
Kim (2)	KEEM (Finnish)	Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish
Zsazsa	ZHAW-zhaw	Hungarian
Lorette	-	French