i was trying to think of examples of technical jargon v obfuscatory jargon. what ones do you use in teaching Alan?
at work, one of the sales managers used the term, "please waterfall this to your team". He could have used any number of "everyday" words - which is to say more typically used words - instead of "waterfall". Don't get the sense that this guy is pretentious - although he's a Brit, I believe.
On our team, another guy and I will use words like obfuscate as a normal part of the way we talk. That's just our vocabulary and we only become aware that it isn't when another guy on the team jokingly says, "Can ya spell that?" One of those inside jokes where he takes a jab at his own, as he calls it, community college education but where he's actually just having fun with others. E.g., another guy, from MIT, is regularly subjected to a bit of ridicule with, "Yo, MIT, you got that bug fixed yet."
In that case, my and E's use of "obfuscatory" could be seen as, well, obfuscatory since another word could be used. Whereas if we use ontology, level set, iteration, semantic - all words that usually make a sales rep stare blankly, then blink twice -- this is somehow technical jargon and acceptable. but a sales rep would still stare, blink, and drool thinking we speak in a foreign language and getting pissed at us for not using everyday words.
At 12:14 AM 3/1/2012, Alan Rudy wrote:
> >
>It is likely that this is misusing the word jargon, but my sense is that
>there is obfuscatory jargon - that needs unpacking and can often be better
>translated into everyday language - and there is technical jargon.
> Technical jargon is essential to complex understandings of complex
>phenomena. At the same time, however, there are places where technical
>jargon and everyday language use the same word to mean different relations,
>processes, etc. The clearest example, in what I do for a living, is the
>word alienation. Additionally, there are odd, explosive, dynamic,
>upsetting, wonderful words - think nature, or culture - that are suffused
>with a vast array of both technical and everyday meanings, referents, etc.