nouveau riche
without the point being directly made. To appreciate this,
consider the same concrete ideas phrased in this way: “John's house was
large. It had forty rooms, and to manage it he employed twenty people”. This
portrays the same information, but has quite a different impact.
Finally, let us give a live illustration of style. It was written by Mike Carlton
referring to the Liberal-National Party Government coalition led by John
Howard:
So damn them down in Canberra. The Prime Minister may pose for his photo opportunities
with the diggers in East Timor, but he leads a Government without heart or soul. It is a
miserable clutch of bean counters and bozo bottom liners, of scrimpers and scrooges, of
fudging actuaries and fidgeting attorneys, a gaggle of thin lipped Melbourne private school
boys and yokel land grabbers and failed academics. Devoid of ideas and imagination,
driven by pollsters, populists and spin-doctoring leeches, dry as dust, stiff as sticks and
cold as stone, they are a wretched crew with the spirit of ticket inspectors and council
parking officers. Stuff the lot of them.
232
You may not agree with the opinions, but you have to love the feel of it. This
style relies on unfolding assertions through its imagery, alliteration and array of
comical archetypal characters, building persistently to its final, lucid and
characteristically Australian conclusion “stuff the lot of them”.
Literary Allusion
I knew a very wise man so much of Sir Christopher [Wren’s] sentiment, that
he believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not
care who should make the laws of the nation.
233
There
has been dispute as to whether literary quotations and allusions are out
of place in legal writing.
234
This issue has arisen mainly with regard to
judgments so discussion will emphasise them.
Judges have been divided on how appropriate it is to use literary allusions. Sir
Owen Dixon did not include literary allusions in judgments deeming judgments
too serious a matter for that.
235
Sir William Fullagar, by contrast, approved of
it. In a “border hopping” case a plaintiff had travelled by a circuitous route
from one town in one state, across the border of a neighbouring state, then
back across the border to another town in the original state. The aim in
___________________
232
Mike Carlton "Lower Than They Go" Sydney Morning Herald
4
December 1999
233
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655-1716), Letter to the Marquis of
Montrose and others.
234
For a general discussion see Cardozo (1925).
235
Gibbs (1993) p 500
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