Jargon Is A Communication Killer

Jargon is a communication killer. If your goal is to clearly communicate with an audience of diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, you’ll want to study up on Plain Language. Why?

When people hear business jargon, such as “ballpark figure” (estimate) or “reach out” (call), they lose interest because those phrases mean nothing. For example, do these sentences mean anything to you?

• The cooptation of patriarchal grammar is often found in juxtaposition with, if not in direct opposition to, the systemization of the materialist architectonic.
  

I have no idea what they are saying, and I’m ok with that. I know that big words have nothing to do with intelligence. But does your audience? In addition to boring them, you might end up making them feel…”intellectually-challenged” if you use jargon.

Political jargon is the evil twin of corporate jargon. In political jargon, the main goal is to convey as little information as possible. Some of the most absurd, intentionally-distracting language can be found in any political race, like the following bullet points from Connecticut:

• 31 words:   Continue to fully support the excellence of the Westport schools and leverage Jim Marpe’s Board of Education leadership and experience to enhance and consolidate, where appropriate, shared services with the Town.

• 33 words:   Further reform the Town’s pension, health and benefit obligations begun under Avi Kaner’s Board of Finance leadership, instilling a greater sense of fiscal discipline to minimize property taxes while safeguarding Westport’s financial future.

Can you even tell which political party these people belong to? What can we learn from this typical political blather?

• Template much? Sentences #1 and #2 are obviously closely related in structure and share some of the same phrases...never use a template when writing.

• The sentence that won’t die. Sentence #3 has a lot of problems, not the least of which is the well-intentioned (but ill-conceived) usage of the semicolon.

Being a writer enables you to read minds. The author originally intended to use a semicolon to break up the cacophony of different thoughts in sentence #3. Unfortunately, he or she then switched to commas without explanation. The result? An existential semicolon. What's the  "take-away" (point)?  Don’t use interns to do the work of professionals.

It’s also important to look at the lack of substance in sentence#3. What are they saying?  What exactly does “care for the environment” mean? More air for everyone? This speaks to what I was saying about political messaging: It is intended to say nothing, and jargon makes that happen.