Jargon

• Confused unintelligible language
• A strange, outlandish, or barbarous language or dialect
• A hybrid language or dialect used in part to exclude ‘unknowing’ people
• A technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group
• Obscure, often pretentious language marked by circumlocutions and long words

Sometimes people within a particular profession use jargon (shop talk) that is unfamiliar to others, but understandable to them. If you use jargon merely to impress your readers or to persuade them of your facility in that field of endeavor, it usually fails. We label such “language” with terms like legalese, medicalese, journalese, technospeak, or pseudoscience.

Although jargon can be appropriate when recognizable to the reader, it can sound pretentious to those not familiar with the terminology. Often, a paper using prolific jargon is amuck with converted speech that is coined to explain a concept. Here are some particularly painful examples:

·        “we Webified our business…

·        “our customers are support-impaired decision makers…”

·        “we prototyped our product…”

·        “our experts subjected the research to scrupulous modeling to ensure an achievable outcome…”

·        “taxwise, a good decision would be…”

·        “weather-wise, our skies today will be…”

Read the following paragraph from a corporate shareholder document. Is the meaning crystal clear to you, after just one reading?

“In accordance with the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code, the Retirement Plan currently limits pension paid under the Plan to an annual maximum of $120,600 (provided, however, that based upon certain provisions in the Retirement Plan in effect as of June 1, 1985, employees may receive a larger pension if entitled thereto as of December 31, 1985).  The Company also has a supplemental plan that provides that the Company will pay out of its general assets, an amount substantially equal to the difference between the amount that would have been payable under the Retirement Plan, in the absence of legislation limiting pension benefits and earnings that may be considered in calculating pension benefits, and the amount actually payable under the Retirement Plan.”

If your writing sounds as confusing as the above paragraph, it’s likely you need to deal with jargon.

Try to find ways to remove jargon and clarify concepts without “dumbing down” the document.

Courtesy: http://www.acecopyediting.com/