A senior lecturer has called on lawyers to abandon complex expressions that are ‘more complicated than they need to be’ [see [2009] Gazette, 1 October, 1]. Clearly this appeal for plain language has not yet reached the syntactical capabilities of the European Court of Justice, since in your report on the judgment in L’Oreal and ors v Bellure NV (see [2009] Gazette, 1 October) you quote, at length (words I use advisedly), a key passage from the judgment running to 17 column lines and 109 words without a full stop.

Barry Borman, Edgware, Middlesex