2011 California Code
Civil Code
PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS
Section 14

Words used in this code in the present tense include the future as well as the present; words used in the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter; the singular number includes the plural, and the plural the singular; the word person includes a corporation as well as a natural person; county includes city and county; writing includes printing and typewriting; oath includes affirmation or declaration; and every mode of oral statement, under oath or affirmation, is embraced by the term testify, and every written one in the term depose ; signature or subscription includes mark, when the person cannot write, his name being written near it, by a person who writes his own name as a witness; provided, that when a signature is by mark it must in order that the same may be acknowledged or may serve as the signature to any sworn statement be witnessed by two persons who must subscribe their own names as witnesses thereto. The following words have in this code the signification attached to them in this section, unless otherwise apparent from the context:

1. The word property includes property real and personal;

2. The words real property are coextensive with lands, tenements, and hereditaments;

3. The words personal property include money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt;

4. The word month means a calendar month, unless otherwise expressed;

5. The word will includes codicil;

6. The word section whenever hereinafter employed refers to a section of this code, unless some other code or statute is expressly mentioned.

(Amended by Stats. 1903, Ch. 281.)