[lbo-talk] Re: On the Limits of Rhetoric

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Sun Nov 28 15:07:06 PST 2004


Jon Johanning wrote:


> The point about these academic writings with fancy terminology is that
> they are not written for the benefit of readers who have not learned
> the particular jargon of the field in question, so it is not
> surprising if the general public cannot understand them. There is a
> horde of popularizers around who eventually get at least some of this
> jargon translated into ordinary language, though there is always some
> loss in the translation, of course.

Not necessarily a loss, except of pretension. Jargon or professional language sounds like it's saying a lot, but it's not necessarily. When it's translated into ordinary language, however, what it's saying is often either common sense or nonsense.

Joanna



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