ONE of the major achievements of the legal profession over the past year has been to eradicate the use of out-of-date and obscure language in the workings of the law. Only a few weeks ago, a Crown Court judge made many apologies to the court, to the point of flagellation, before using the word locus.

So it seems appropriate as we continue with this legal language revolution to go back to basics. In David Crystal’s book The Stories of English we are reminded that it was the lawyers who played a crucial role in the development of a standard English language with Chancery cited as the primary influence on language in the medieval period. The authority of the Inns of Court and “legal scriveners” and “cursitors” was also significant. It was the cursitor’s job to make out original writs de cursu (to do with routine official matters) and Cursitor Street still exists, just off Chancery Lane.

Crystal’s work is the complete history of the English language from the origins of Old English and local dialects through to the 21st century, with some fascinating facts along the way. For instance, did you know that of 100,000 entries in an English dictionary the average person’s vocabulary is about 50,000 words? In fact, studies conclude that a “reasonably well-educated person actively uses about 12 per cent of the word stock of the language”.

JOHN HUMPHRYS takes up the cause in Lost for Words, subtitled The Mangling and Manipulating of the English Language. This is an informative, entertaining and predictably provocative read. In his chapter “Can words change the world?”, Humphrys takes on the modern trend of producing “a nice neat phrase or ‘condition’ that we can all understand” which in its simplicity can cause much damage. Take the use of “syndromes” for instance: they “are not like viruses; they cannot be seen under a microscope and their existence cannot be objectively proven. It is a matter of decision, not discovery.” Humphrys concludes that the experts decide, which “gives them great power”.

The example he gives is the Angela Cannings case — a woman convicted of murdering her children on a diagnosis of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy. She was released by the Court of Appeal. The book observes: “She was a victim not of a syndrome but of experts’ willingness to believe in their own creation. Something to which they had given a name.”

On a lighter note, the book reminds us that the BBC can also get it wrong. “For the second time in six months, a prisoner at Durham jail has died after hanging himself in his cell”; “A suicide bomber has struck again in Jerusalem”; and “Sixty women have come forward to claim they have been assaulted by a dead gynaecologist” being the best. Clichés in crime reporting are also derided. “Police with tracker dogs still comb the area”, “Doubts are always nagging” and “Worries . . . are always stark”, Humphrys observes.

BRITSLANG by Ray Puxley will be invaluable to the judge who shrinks from saying locus — he can bring himself into 2005. He will no doubt sentence a “Kylie”, that is a Kylie Minogue = rogue, or have to decide on “whodunnit”, that is, resolve the parenthood of “a mystery baby, one born to a woman known to be having an affair”. Nevertheless, one would hope that he never has to deal with a “shyster”, originally a dishonest lawyer, possibly after Eugene Sheuster, a New York lawyer of the 1850s.

The Stories of English by David Crystal, published by Allen Lane, £25; Lost for Words by John Humphrys, Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99; Britslang by Ray Puxley, Robson Books, £12.99

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