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Jargon Examples Still Wanted


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Originally uploaded by griffey
I could not resist blogging this photo of my friend Jason assembling a crib, and yes, there is a jargon tie-in (related to yesterday’s request for examples of jargon used by librarians, and thanks for the great examples so far).

All day long we drown in vast rivers of formulaic, jargon-turgid, mind-deadening prose. Library websites, annual reports, signs, flyers, help pages… then the world at large with its plastic fantastic commercialized tsunamis… then the idiot box, with its bright jumping colors and its insistent messages (my favorite being that to be a successful female detective one must wear clothes a size too small; the other day a detective showed up on a crime scene in a nipple-revealing blouse that had dotted swiss sleeves, for crying out loud.)

When we try to freshen our brain, what do we hear? What, I ask you?

To start with, I woke up the other day to hear someone chatter on Twitter that I could go to YouTube and hear the same annoying commercial that has helped keep me from purchasing an iPhone.

The problem with jargon isn’t that it’s merely unclear. It’s that it makes us unclear. It puts us in a jar and tells us what to think and how to think it. It makes us more excited about commercials or the ghastly word pudding of library help pages than we are about the sound of a woodpecker pocking the tree outside a bedroom window or the particular pale blue of the mist that hovers above a warm, wet street after an autumn rain.

Jargon helps make us forget about war and climate change and the small heartbreaks of everyday life.

Meanwhile, I have two captions for this picture.

The commercial world: “Having a baby changes everything.” (How I love hearing that, a clear reminder that as a childless woman I will remain ever-un-evolved. Then again, the company responsible for that slogan isn’t targeting my wallet.)

The real world. “Having a baby changes everything… OMG! OMG! Having a baby changes everything! I am not ready for this! Somebody please HELP! If I can’t get this crib together how can I put this kid through college… Hey, I think they left some parts out of this kit… I feel hungry… I bet there’s a snack in the fridge… I can finish this tomorrow.”

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