“The US and the UK – so the saying goes – are ‘two countries divided by a common language’. The same could be said for lawyers and non-lawyers. Lawyers talk in a language which must seem like gobbledygook to everyone else. Take the word ‘tort’. Any law student knows that it means ‘civil wrong’. But ask a non-lawyer to give you a sentence with the word ‘tort’ in it and they might as well say: ‘I tort I tore a puddy cat!’ for all the sense it will mean to them.”
The Times, 26th July 2007
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk