WRT333

Jargon, Euphemisms, etc.
Week 4

Syllabus | Table of Pages

Jargon

Jargon may be intentional technical terminology or a trait of the special language of a discourse community, but it also is confused, unintelligible, obscure, pretentious, and often just plain bizarre. Even the technical use can be tailored through adequate definitions of new terms, or selection of better words. There is no reward for the reader who encounter' jargon, so why write it? Instead, learn to recognize and avoid it.

Word choice is important. Try to find shorter words to replace many-syllable ones, or to take the place of outlandish phrases. Don't utilize: use. Stop initiating and start instead.; and why terminate when you can end? Quit trying to fabricate and try to make. Have a noun or adjective problem? Hmm. Is this your initial awareness, or your first, that you might have to deal with this? Do you remember the ultimate time (remember? it was the last time) that someone said your writing was wordy? It might have been prior to, or before, this class? Have we made a sufficient point (had enough), or was this plethora a bit too much? Well, you get the point: keep it simple and do your reader a favor.

Day (1998) recognizes the place for special terms, and offers this suggestion

Of course, you will have to use specialized terminology on occasion. If such terminology is readily understandable to practitioners and students in the field, there is no problem. If the terminology is not recognizable to any portion of your potential audience, you should (1) use simpler terminology, or (2) carefully define the esoteric terms (jargon) that you are using. In short, you should not write for the half dozen or so people who are doing exactly your kind of work. You should write for the hundreds of people whose work is only slightly related to yours but who may want or need to know some particular aspect of your work.

Day also awards no points to bureaucrats, either. Lawyers and rule makers may be able to use short words, but they may also tend to string together all possible short words to cover all possible meanings. You've seen it. "No not loiter on, walk, sit, trespass, occupy, ...." grows out of "Don't walk on the grass," for example, making sure that no one can ever say "...but you didn't say...." Arrggh! Cut it out, people!

There are a number of phrases we use too often, and these are to be avoided. Day suggests that you try to avoid "case" and that you consider "about" as a synonym for "approximately, in connection with, pursuant to, regarding, with respect to, on the order of, more or less, in the vicinity of," etc. Here are a few more to think about

Not so goodBetter
a considerable amount ofmuch
a majority ofmost
in order toto
as a consequence ofbecause
at this / that point in timenow / then
needless to sayleave out this phrase and consider whether to also leave out whatever you were about to say but didn't need to
very uniqueunique

Note, too, that text messaging has developed an entirely new set of jargon, BTW. OMG! That was jargon? Well, yes, IMHO. LOL! and don't forget smileys. ";)" (Here's a little more.)

...and still more: UC Santa Barbara (dysphemistic?) | wikipedia (newspeak) | the Guardian (sustainability, anyone?)

This isn't easy, by the way. Here is my own struggle with "sustainability" as meaningless jargon (okay, that's redundant...)

Euphemisms

Euphemisms are a special kind of jargon, substituting "nice" words that hide some of the harshness of what we are really faced with. We seldom die; we pass away. We never kill the lab rat; it is sacrificed. Politicians really like to speak this way; it's their favorite way of lying between their teeth!

References