DailyPost 281
JARGON
Jargon is quite liberally used to express what the general reader doesn’t want understand, sometimes not even try to understand and at times to demean the writing of an individual of being unworthy of reading. Quite often, the use of supposedly sophisticated language is also termed so. Literally, it means, use of special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand.
It is generally presumed that jargons are being used to confuse the readers or the audience, sounding pompous, when there is no necessity to do so. In reality, the main driving force is precision & brevity and provides for ease of communication, as we move from the generic to the specific. It has the characteristic of finely differentiated details & does not in any way circumlocution. Circumlocution means a long complicated way of expressing things. Circumlocution has to be avoided & in general parlance may mean one & the same thing.
When the average or sub-average reader had little to do with intricacies with higher functioning of the society & world, in its different dimensions, the issue of usage of jargons or otherwise did not arise. Last few decades have been a churning of different kinds bringing in the average man in the middle of change, he is forced to grapple with, thus some idea of different fields. he ought to understand on a day to day basis. The lingua franca as we call it, itself became challenging. The lingua franca of the day is perpetually evolving. Learning to some extent has become the order of the day.
Is GST a jargon? The answer to this would be an eyeopener. With life being intertwined with technology, how to do we term bandwidth or for that matter firewall. They have moved out of the closet & moving slowly on to the general usage arena. Or is it possible that our limited understanding of English itself comes in way of this understanding & subsequent change.
IN THE TECHNO-COMPLEX DAILY GRIND, JARGON SPELLS CONVENIENCE.
Sanjay Sahay