Down these mean streets ...

[David Morris]

--- Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com> wrote:
> 
> From David Morris:
> 
> > All I asked was if you could refrain from the jargon, which you are
undoubtedly guilty of using.
> 
> That was not what you asked. You asked me to acknowledge I was being elitist.
I declined.

My post:
<< Please, Paul, can you stop using this jargon and sink to a less "precise"
language, somewhere near to common parlance?  If it's any good it should not be
only for the refined.  How remote do you wish your audience to be?  This jargon
has always seemed to me to be a shield. Please make it not so. >>

I guess it all depends on which definition of jargon (note I used that word
twice) you take.  But we can combine some of them using the key words from my
post, such as 'less "precise"' & "common parlance."  The combining these,
jargon meant technical, as in specialized for a particular, and not commonly
used, therefore obscure (hence the quotes around precise).  This obscurity, I
contended, is a shield, used puposefully (or at least effectively) to keep a
distance from the audience (thus my use of "remote").  You took all this and
came up with a single word, "elitist," which has some shades of the above, but
misses the main point: lack of effective communication with an audience because
of the use of a specialized language, hence my later "talk to yourself."

Oxford Paperback:
jargon
noun 1: words used by particular group or profession. 2: debased or pretentious
language.

The American Heritage® Dictionary
jargon
1. Nonsensical, incoherent, or meaningless talk. 2. A hybrid language or
dialect; a pidgin. 3. The specialized or technical language of a trade,
profession, or similar group. See synonyms at dialect. 4. Speech or writing
having unusual or pretentious vocabulary, convoluted phrasing, and vague
meaning.

Merriam-Websters
jar·gon 
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French
Date: 14th century
1 a : confused unintelligible language b : a strange, outlandish, or barbarous
language or dialect c : a hybrid language or dialect simplified in vocabulary
and grammar and used for communication between peoples of different speech
2 : the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or
group
3 : obscure and often pretentious language marked by circumlocutions and long
words 

>> You prefered to call what I deemed "jargon" as "being educated,"

> At no point did I say that. At no point did I imply that.

You blamed the education system for my lack of following your jargon, and then
asked why someone like me who reads Pynchon wouldn't take the time to learn the
language you were using.  I'd say you damned near exactly said and implied what
wrote above.

David Morris

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