Jargoned

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Getting a jargoned communication is the last thing anyone would like; especially when you really wanted to get what is being said. It is not, that I have something against the articulate class of people. I do respect their ability to remember the oxford dictionary, but what is the point of all these “Honorificabilitudinitatibus” if you can’t convey anything?

Love them, hate them, but you can never ignore them? Can you? The triumphant smile on the face of every Jargoneer is not unknown to us.  For him a speech isn’t complete if he fails to take aback the listeners by his mind blowing vocabulary.

When the phrase “provide details” makes more sense than “break it down”, or when the word “reduce” makes more sense than the phrase “clamp down” , then, why are we running behind these gimmicks? Are we forgetting the sole purpose of all the communication theories developed over time?

The question is; couldn’t the language be a lot simpler without them. It’s true that scientific and technical terms cannot be moulded in lay man’s language, but what about jargons in management? In a field where the interpersonal communication is given so much importance; why end up in a verbal diarrhea?

Let us try to observe the evolution of a Jargoneer through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

The Jargoneer like most of us would start off by using the language for his or her existence. This is the early stage of evolution where he somehow struggles out of the maze in good life. Then the situation will get little more complex where language is used for his safety (As a defense) rather than for meager survival. Here the language becomes a tool and helps him to win the verbal combat over others. Then comes the phase when he falls in love with the language. Language becomes his friend, family and moreover something, that he

loves to be with. Love gives way to esteem and language becomes his confidence. He is respected for his eloquence. Then esteem gives way to the most dangerous form of them all, self actualization, where neither he gets to know what he speaks nor do we. Where, his or her articulacy gets gibberish. At least they sound like gibberish. Here the sender sends the information but there would not be any meaningful decryption at the receiver’s end and a feedback is usually numb. The purpose of communication gets tampered in due course and we will never get to know what he really meant to say at the first place. In short, communication gets jarred and the listener gets gunned. Now what the listener would have in front of him is none other than   the jargoned communication.