Little Dorritt contains the oh-so-wonderful circumlocution office - a veritable ministry of naked bureaucracy, created out of utter pointlessness and designed to frustrate the citizenry whilst feathering the nests of the idle elite.
(You have to wonder what a latter day Dickens would have made of the European Union.)
If my latin were better I would of course know if my interpretation of 'circumlocution' as 'talking around in circles' were sufficiently valid.