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wadavis comments on Open thread, Nov. 3 - Nov. 9, 2014 - Less Wrong
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To be clear, I'm using the broadest definition of legalese, in this case: design guides, building codes. Technical material recognized by the authority having jurisdiction that is not intended to be ambiguous, it is just complex. Stuff where the advice is consult your engineer instead of consult your lawyer.
I find that often this sort of writing -- technical-ish, e.g. trying to describe a flowchart or a boolean circuit in casual text, as you see in law or documentation -- has various sorts of ambiguities (e.g. issues with associativity and quantifiers) that would be obvious if you tried to transcribe it into code.
OK. Gotcha.
If I understand the vocabulary of a text but the syntax is unclear, I'll assume it's badly written. If it's composed of pathologically malformed sentences, I'll assume my English skills are better than the author's. If the vocabulary is unusual, or it's a subject I'm unfamiliar with, I'll give more weight to my own ignorance being the problem.