Ragman Rolls for legal instruments both in England and Scotland will be found in the preface to the Bannatyne Clubs volume, and in Jamiesons Scottish Dictionary, s.v. Ragman. Brewer's "Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" defines "Ragman Roll" as follows: The name ragman roll survives in the colloquial rigmarole, a rambling, incoherent statement. Merriam Webster gives a very different account of the origin rigmarole and the term "Ragman Roll". The name of Ragman has been sometimes confined to the record of 1296. There is an account of this given in Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland preserved in the Public Record Office, London.
Legal writing may carry a different meaning in other contexts. "Legalese" is an English term first used in 1914 for legal writing that is very difficult for laymen to read and understand, the implication being that this abstruseness is deliberate for excluding the legally untrained and to justify high fees. "Legalese", as a term, has been adopted in other languages. Legalese is characterized by long sentences, many modifying clauses, complex vocabulary, high abstraction, and insensitivity to the layman's need to understand the document's gist. Legalese arises most commonly in legal drafting, yet appears in both types of legal analysis. Some important points