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Jargon and
its discontents
Technical language
Jargon is defined as "the specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or
similar group." Which is all right, as far as that goes. Civil engineers
can talk to each other quickly and, yes, civilly, when they use technical
terms that they understand.
Gobbledygook
The problem is that jargon infiltrates the common
speech. If an engineer uses technical terminology when he's
speaking to a
non-engineering audience, comprehension may suffer. Jargon may then
become,
as another definition reminds us, "Nonsensical, incoherent, or meaningless talk."
Or, to use a more pungent term,
"gobbledygook."
If the audience picks up such
language and passes it along to other, non-technical audiences, they may
affect — and infect — others too. Pretty soon,
everybody is using infected, inflated language to sound important or
suggest a meaning that's really not very clear at all.
The comforts of jargon
Let's admit it, jargon can be comforting. It shows we belong to the
club. And it banishes
the hard work of thinking, really thinking, for ourselves.
The contaminations of jargon
Jargon's perverse effects don't stop at opacity.
For jargon can easily pass over from incomprehensible technical terminology to deceptive and
dishonest language. Dave Barry makes the point in a recent column about the plan to change North Dakota's name to Dakota:
So changing names is a sound idea, an idea based on the scientific principle that underlies the
field of marketing, which is: People are stupid. Marketing experts know that if you call
something by a different name, people will believe it's a different thing. That's how
``undertakers'' became ``funeral directors.'' That's how ``trailers'' became ``manufactured
housing.'' That's how ``We're putting you on hold for the next decade'' became ``Your call is
important to us.''
- When software solutions
become a gas
Here are some examples of jargon which I've found on the Web:
As a
customer, there is a wide range of expertise and solutions available to
you.
-
The
mission of ISC is to deliver effective business solutions using
leading, proven technologies.
-
Tailored
Software Solutions (TSS) is a group dedicated to serving our customers
by providing tailored solutions to meet their unique business
requirements.
You see how easy it is to provide pseudo-solutions when
everybody is pretending to agree what the words mean — and how the grammar
works? (Jargon often goes hand in glove with grammatical errors, and
may even produce them. In the first example above, the phrase "As a
customer" is what's called a dangling modifier: it just hangs out
there in linguistic space, modifying nothing that makes sense. The
"wide range" is not a customer, is it?)
(What about the role of solids and gases, you may wonder!)
Such gaseous prose is easy enough to fix
and transform when we reflect just a little on what words mean. And on who
the audience for our words is.
Humorous & playful jargon
Of course, those in the know can take delight among themselves in the
playfulness of jargon — for example, computer hackers. See the amusing
and revealing Hacker
Dictionary.
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