Richard Harrison asks whether the modernisation of legal terms really is a good thing
Getting on for a decade ago, I wrote “Linguistics and Litigation” (149 NLJ 6907, p 1491) and followed it up with “Linguistics and Litigation Part 2” (151 NLJ 7004, p 1545).
One purpose of the articles was to air some curmudgeonly resistance to change for the sake of change—and even now I still feel a vague nostalgia for “writs” and “plaintiffs”, “garnishee orders” and good old “certiorari”. I was never that strong on “assumpsit”. However, I also wanted to communicate a vague sense that somehow linguistic changes were introduced under the guise of modernisation and accessibility when really they were intended to encourage conformity or indeed control thought. I had the Orwellian concept of “Newspeak” very much in mind.
A historical perspective brings home how closely the civil procedure reforms were culturally part of the New Labour project. Modernisation and novelty were the buzzwords; there was an air of optimism in the power of consultancy and consultation. Practical politics was about rolling out solutions and implementing
