商务英语网 商务英语网
  • 首页
  • 商务英语听力
  • 商务英语翻译
  • 商务英语阅读
  • 商务英语比赛
  • 商务英语口语
  • 商务英语词汇
  • 商务英语写作
首页 › 商务英语阅读 › In Praise of Jargon

In Praise of Jargon

Biz
2 年前

Acronyms and slang can help build cultures and improve efficiency

An idea to run up the flagpole: jargon gets an overly bad press. Not the kind of jargon that involves using the words “flagpole” and “run up”, but the kind that binds teams together. The kind that is exemplified by the term “nub”. In the very unlikely event that you find yourself on board a submarine but are not a member of the crew, you will be a nub.

A nub is a “non-useful body” – someone who uses up oxygen, food and space and offers nothing in return. A nub is someone who is not on the team, and the opacity of jargon gives the word extra bite. Only insiders know what it means.

Useful crew members have their own names. This cast of characters includes nukes, coners, shower techs and other bubbleheads whose jobs may include looking after Sherwood Forest. (If you need to ask, you are a nub.) Although submarines are unusual environments, the use of jargon to signify specific practices, objects and people is prevalent in workplaces everywhere.

Some of this jargon is not much more than slang. The “blue goose” is what White House staffers call the travelling presidential lectern. The “grid” is the nickname for the diary of planned policy announcements by the British government. Doctors have a private vocabulary for patients when they are out of earshot. “Status dramaticus” is how some medics diagnose people who have not much wrong with them but behave as though death is nigh; “ash cash” is the fee that British doctors pocket for signing cremation forms.

Such shared language is not exactly high-minded, but it does serve a useful purpose – creating a sense of tribe and of belonging. Each company generates its own particular lexicon. The GE logo is also known as “the meatball” by people inside the industrial firm. At Stripe, a digital-payments company, hiring-committee meetings are called “tropes”. A “fourth leader” is what journalists at The Economist call lighthearted opinion articles. No one knows why; it is usually the fifth of five editorials. But the knowing is enough. The code confers membership.

Jargon can spread for practical reasons as well as cultural ones. The airline industry has the usual slang, from “deadheads” (off-duty crew on a commercial flight) to “George” (a common nickname for the autopilot). But codifying knowledge in agreed ways can be a serious business. Well over 1,000 passengers and crew lost their lives between 1976 and 2000 in accidents where misunderstandings over language were found to have played a role. Pilots use highly standardised and scripted terminology in order to reduce the scope for potentially fatal errors.

Terms can arise as a way of increasing efficiency. A paper published last year, by Ronald Burt of Bocconi University and Ray Reagans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looked at how jargon emerges naturally among groups. It describes an experiment in which volunteers are assigned to teams. Each team member is separately assigned a set of symbols, and one symbol is common to all of them. Team members must quickly identify this shared symbol by sending messages to each other that describe what they have been given.

To start with, the teams use quasi-sentences and generic words to get across what they are seeing (one symbol “looks like its leg is out in a kicking motion”). Soon enough everyone in the team is calling it “kicking man” or “kicker”. As rounds progress a tacitly agreed vocabulary allows teams to identify the common symbol more and more quickly. Different teams alight on different forms of jargon for each symbol, but the effect is the same: everyone knows what is meant and things get done faster.

Jargon can be desperately unhelpful. The criminal-justice system is made more intimidating, to victims and suspects alike, by confusing terminology. Conversations between doctors and patients go much better when everyone understands each other. One reason why management jargon arouses so much irritation is because it usually substitutes for something that was doing the job perfectly well. No one hears the words “Let’s talk about it later” and feels baffled. Plenty of people do hear the phrase “Let’s put a pin in it” and wish they had a sharp object to hand.

There is an awful lot of non-useful blather out there, in other words. But the fact that jargon emerges spontaneously and repeatedly suggests it has its merits. In the right circumstances, it can help build a culture and act as a useful shorthand. If you think all jargon is worthless, it may be time to circle back.

0
Desk Rage
上一篇
Overloaded Overseers
下一篇

猜你喜欢

  • How to Get People to Resign
  • The Signals of Workplace Submissiveness
  • The Employee Awards for 2024
  • How to Inspire People
  • Jet Set

Biz

667
文章
0
评论
656
获赞

相关文章

The Toast with the Most
3 年前
为什么我的iPhone只用了一年电池就不行了?
1 年前
When the Boss Is Behind You
4 年前
2022年(延考)商务英语专业四八级考试成绩查询及证书领取通知
2 年前
为太平洋岛国和东帝汶的女性提供贸易机会
4 年前
Klopped Out
1 年前
Keeping Your Career on Track (I)
2 年前
第十三届全国法律英语大赛华南赛区初赛获奖名单
1 年前
“协语杯”全国大学生商务英语词汇竞赛获奖名单
3 年前
第三届“中语智汇杯”全国大学生国际商务谈判大赛区域赛获奖及晋级名单
8 月前
Copyright © 2020-2025 商务英语网. Designed by nicetheme. 渝公网安备50010602502291 渝ICP备2020014586号-2
  • 职场30
  • 苹果公司16
  • 全国商务英语实践大赛15
  • 亿学杯全国商务英语实践技能大赛15
  • 国才考试15
  • 商务英语听力
  • 商务英语翻译
  • 商务英语考试
  • 商务英语阅读
  • 商务英语词汇
close
会员购买 你还没有登录,请先登录
  • ¥15 VIP-1个月
  • ¥80 VIP-半年
  • ¥150 VIP-1年
在线支付 激活码

立即支付
微信支付
支付宝
请使用 支付宝 或 微信 扫码支付