[lbo-talk] Jargon in Science

Alan Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Thu Mar 1 04:50:55 PST 2012


On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 6:53 AM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:


>
> 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.
>
> ....
>
> 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.
>
>
The three examples that immediately came to mind were "insurgent", "state's rights", and "Id, Ego and Superego". There's also things like the kind of parsing/veiling/obscuring associated with Jeannie Kirkpatrick's(?) insistence on the difference between dictatorships and totalitarian regimes.



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