3 Its historical layers (why it looks so strange)

1. Anglo-Saxon base: plain everyday words — land, will, gift, oath, writ, deed, law. 2. Latin (Roman law and the church): stare decisis, ratio decidendi, obiter dicta, inter alia, bona fide, mutatis mutandis, affidavit (he has sworn), habeas corpus. 3. Law French (after the Norman Conquest, 1066 — French was the language of English courts for ~300 years): attorney, bailiff, defendant, plaintiff, plea, court, judge, jury, lien, tort, contract, larceny, estoppel — and the famous doublets pairing an English word with a French one: will and testament, goods and chattels, cease and desist, null and void, act and deed, acknowledge and confess. 4. Modern international layer: plain-English movement, EU terminology, IT law vocabulary. The result: a register of enormous expressive precision at its best, and enormous obscurity at its worst. This unit teaches you to command it — not to be commanded by it.