Pop culture references do not a story make

In the court case, reference was made to "walking in Mordor", a term from the Lord of the Rings movies

Judges can garner high levels of criticism in their chosen careers, so opportunities for a few words of approbation are often welcome.

Well done to Court of Appeal president Ms Justice Caroline Costello for drawing us all up on the use of “inappropriate” slang and cultural references, and warning that their deployment can go against precision and clarity.

In this case, she was objecting to a High Court judgment in a wind farm case which warned about litigants “walking into Mordor” and one of the parties being subjected to “gaslighting”.

Mordor is the land of darkness in Middle Earth in the fantasy epic Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien.

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse based on a 1940s thriller movie by the director George Cukor.

Such comments, Ms Justice Costello said, meant the judgment could “only be understood by reference to literary tropes, which may or may not be understood by a reader”, in an appeal against a decision to approve a wind farm in the Carrownagowan area within the slopes of Slieve Bearnagh mountain.

That’s us all told then, and a good reminder that not everyone in the world has read the lyrics of Taylor Swift.

We should remember the observation of the 18th century polymath Dr Johnson: “Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”