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Ned Bedinger noted: <<I want to explore some new ground: I detect a
dark star lurking at the center of our sense of what is jargon.>>
Careful... dark starts tend to generate much more heat than light!
<gdrlh>
<<The word jargon can be defined across a pretty darned huge
conceptual range, so I don't think it has much utility, even as one
of the individual definitions, to a tech writer.>>
Good point. And that range spans the spectrum from incomprehensible
elitist gibberish (most of the contents of _Social Text_, for
instance) to words that communicate effectively both within and
between audiences (like most of the science I edit). So rather than
dissing (both discussing and disrespecting <g>) jargon per se, it's
wise to define our terms carefully from the start.
<<The argument, so it goes, is that jargon isn't a problem for
technical writers, it is a problem for the audience. I still have a
problem with jargon in this sense. I expect that the majority of what
we filter out of documentation as jargon is actually not about the
words at all. It is rather about the concepts underlying the words.>>
That's an interesting division. I tend to use the phrase "(in)
appropriate jargon" to focus on your first point: it's not so
important whether a word is technical, but rather whether its level
of technicality is appropriate for the readers. That leads neatly
into your second point, which is that sometimes we should be focusing
on the concept's relevance to the reader before we worry about the
choice of words to convey that relevance.
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-- Geoff Hart
ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca / geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com
www.geoff-hart.com
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