Jargon
Different fields provide entire vocabularies to make communicating ideas specific to that field easier. The necessity of the words these languages use is variable. Guess which language we’ll be using for examples?
Necessary: abbreviations like TCP, NTFS, SDK… etcetera. You don’t want to say the full thing every time it comes up in conversation.
Justifiable: OO, RTFM, and any file format used to describe a data entity (exe, jpeg, etc). It gets weird hearing “oh oh” (OO) when talking to a peer, but probably because I always think of Office Space when the abbreviation graces my ears.
Unjustifiable: Any word that has been bastardized and is now being applied in the war on the English language. Flikr, Digg, and Writely are all included. Maybe not jargon, but I hear them way too much to go ignored.
Management: Any of the above terms used inappropriately.
Jargon: use responsibly.
The worst assault on English in general is the use of the word “gift” in a verb context. In the past year it has escaped from the realm of blogs (the “blogosphere”) and into the real world.
Dec 10th, 2007 at 1:21 pm