Adherents of the "sovereign citizens" movement and of sovereign financial scams like "redemption" are known for their bizarre use of language and Byzantine belief system. What follows is a lexicon — or, more precisely, an idioticon, a dictionary of a peculiar dialect — meant to help court officials, law enforcement officers and the general public make their way through the sovereigns' verbal fog.

14th Amendment citizen

Sovereign citizens describe 14th Amendment citizens as subject to federal and state governments, unlike themselves. Because the amendment gave citizenship to freed slaves, a racist variant of sovereign-citizen theory holds that blacks are subject to the governments and that being white is a prerequisite to being a sovereign citizen. Others claim all state citizens were converted by the constitutional amendment to "Federal Citizens," who can only be freed by a process known as "asseveration."

Accepted for value

When a sovereign receives a bill from the IRS, a bank, or even the cable company, under a twisted reading of the Uniform Commercial Code, he believes he can simply write "Accepted for Value" on that bill and it will be paid by his secret Treasury Direct Account, set up by the government when he was born.

Admiralty law/common law

According to sovereign beliefs, there are two types of law: common law and admiralty law. Since the U.S. went off the gold standard in 1933, sovereigns say, no one has been able to pay a debt with "real" money, and therefore the country has been operating under commercial law, which sovereigns equate with admiralty law, the law of the seas. Thus, they argue, completely speciously, that Americans have been deprived of their original common law, under which the government can only impose regulations on citizens with their consent, since 1933.

Bill of Exchange

A fake check used to access the funds in the secret Treasury account supposedly set up by the government to monetize the value of each citizen's life at birth.

Birth certificate

This form establishes each person's corporate shell, a kind of evil doppelgänger that is attached to every flesh-and-blood baby. That shell is then supposedly sold by the government as a security to foreign investors to enrich Federal Reserve bankers. The proof that the certificate has secret meaning is found in the use of all capital letters, bond paper and a seal and/or watermark — all of which are thought to reflect admiralty law.

Citizen/citizen

In the 18th-century colonies, nouns were usually capitalized, although the practice was going out of style by the time of the Revolution. Based on that, sovereigns see secret meaning in the use or non-use of capitalized letters. For example, a "citizen" is a sovereign citizen imbued with all natural rights, whereas a "Citizen" is a 14th Amendment citizen subject to the rules and regulations of government.

Common-law court

Pseudo-legal courts set up to hear matters concerning sovereign citizens, sometimes also called "freemen." They have been used to put enemies on trial for such offenses as treason, rule on matters of interest to sovereigns and, frequently, to formalize citizens' declarations of sovereignty, a process often known as asseveration.

Flag fringe

Based on the fact that Navy flags and many other military flags have gold fringe, sovereigns believe the presence of fringe on flags in federal courts isn't just decorative, but rather proof that the nation is under admiralty law.

Form 1099-OID

Although the IRS uses this form for zero-coupon bonds and collateralized bonds, sovereigns believe that the 1099-OID gives them access to the money in the secret Treasury Direct Account that the government funded at their birth.

Name in all capital letters

JOHN ROBERT DOE, for instance, signifies the corporate shell of a person, as opposed to the flesh-and-blood person.

Name punctuation

John-Robert: Doe signifies a flesh-and-blood person named John-Robert of the family Doe, as opposed to a punctuation-free name, JOHN ROBERT DOE, which refers to the corporate shell of a person.

Negative averment

The trick, used by many sovereigns, of twisting all statements into the form of a question in order to shift the burden of truth to the opponent.

Red ink

In some states, bonds are canceled using red ink. Sovereigns therefore sign many legal documents and correspondence in red ink to signify that they are canceling the bond attached to their birth certificate or corporate self. Others believe the color of the ink represents the blood of the flesh-and-blood person.

Redemption

The phony legal process sovereigns use to separate a person's flesh-and-blood body from their mythical corporate shell. Since only the corporate shell is subject to taxes, traffic laws and license requirements, the ability to separate the two is the key to liberating people from such requirements. An added bonus is that the newly freed sovereign can then write checks, or "bills of exchange," on the account the government has set up to monetize the person's life and earnings.

Strawman

The label assigned to the corporate shell in the redemption process. This corporate shell is attached to a baby at birth when a birth certificate is typed out using all capital letters and a Social Security number is applied for.

Sui juris

Many sovereigns add this Latin phrase, meaning "of one's own right," to their flesh-and-blood names on legal documents to signify that they are reserving all the rights to which a free man is entitled.

Treasury Direct Account

When a baby is born, sovereigns believe that the government funds a secret Treasury account in that baby's corporate shell name, based on that person's future earnings. This account can be accessed by writing special checks to pay taxes, mortgage balances and other debts. Sovereigns variously believe the account's value is between $600,000 and $20 million.

Truth language

A complex and bizarre set of language rules designed to mimic the secret language of the law. All sentences must start with the preposition "for," have a minimum of 13 words, and use more nouns than verbs. Punctuation rules are just as complex.

UCC-1 Statement

When a sovereign successfully separates his flesh-and-blood body from his corporate shell in the redemption process, the flesh-and-blood body then can file a UCC-1 statement against their corporate self in order to preserve the value of that corporate self's Treasury Direct Account for their own use. Since most jurisdictions are getting wise to sovereigns' UCC games, sovereigns often must shop jurisdictions until they find one willing to file the statement without question.