Jargon. Terrible stuff. We all agree, don't we? Let's jettison the lot, and get back to clear, straightforward English. Who could disagree? But is it really so cut & dried? And if jargon really is as useless as this, how come it's so resilient?
The fact is, given the right context, jargon is not only justified - it's a positive boon. School governor meetings would take a lot longer if everyone always referred to School Improvement Partners and Performance & Assessment reports rather than SIPs and PANDAs. The shortform is just as clear - and far more concise. Jargon comes under suspicion, of course, when 'we', in fact, means not just us, but them too, and they aren't quite as au fait with it as we are. While jargon can aid communication, all too often it does the precise opposite. To quote from a recent letter in The Guardian:
"...but when she says, "My job is to facilitate access to the libraries by everyone in the community, especially people at risk of social exclusion, some of whom might have literacy problems, suffer from disabilities or not speak English fluently", does she mean "all welcome?" How easy it is to slip into bureaucratic jargon."
Indeed. Confronted by such prose, you have to wonder who's actually being addressed. Certainly not the 'people at risk of social exclusion', who would surely find it impenetrable. Perhaps, you can't help suspecting, the real audience is the speaker's peers rather than the community at large; the real objective being to impress the former rather than to engage with the latter.
Which brings us to the nub: jargon has its place, as an integral part of the language which helps distinct groups communicate with each other more easily and efficiently than they otherwise could. But used, as it all too often is, not to communicate but to impress, to self-aggrandise, even, on occasion, to exclude, isolate and belittle, it is little but a comfy redoubt for pomposity and arrogance and disdain.
And that's why we at ampers&, while happy to use jargon when the task demands, tend to view it as guilty until it proves itself innocent. We are, after all, in the business of communicating - of winning hearts and minds - not of showing off, or bolstering fragile egos.
Kind regards
Alan Paterson