This is of course implicit in the mindsets -- C++ is continually trying to support new idioms for the programmer to express themselves, C would prefer you stick

This is of course implicit in the mindsets -- C++ is continually trying to support new idioms for the programmer to express themselves, C would prefer you stick as close as possible to a smaller set of idioms. Just because you can technically make use of a design pattern in C, doesn't mean the language (or the community) will ever encourage that.