Jargon: We Love To Hate It

<p><span>Head on over to plainlanguage.gov, and you’ll find a helpful table, dedicated to simplifying and demystifying military jargon. On one side of the table, there’s the jargon term, and on the other, its plain language equivalent. “Arbitrarily deprive of life”? Actually just means “kill people.” “Render nonviable”? Also means “kill people.” “Terminate with extreme prejudice”? “Kill people.”   </span></p> <p><span>This table is just one of many resources on plainlanguage.gov—from checklists to plain language training to thesauruses. The website was created by an unfunded government group of plain language activists who make it their mission to translate government communications into regular old, plain language. </span></p> <p><span>But jargon isn’t just a government problem. It pops up in nearly every field, and it seems like it annoys most of us. So why do we use it? And is there anything actually good about it?   <br></span><br><span>This episode was inspired by a question from a listener, Jafar, who asked about the word “recrudescence” and why we tend to use fancy words when simple ones would work just fine. If you have a question about a word or phrase, leave us a voicemail! The number is </span><strong>929-499-WORD</strong><span>, or </span><strong>929-499-9673</strong><span>. Or, you can always send an email to </span><strong>podcasts@sciencefriday.com</strong><span>.  </span></p> <p><em>A transcript of this episode is being processed. It will be available within one week.</em></p> <h3>Guests: </h3> <p><a href="https://www.cooley.edu/faculty/joseph-kimble"><span>Joe Kimble</span></a><span> is a plain language advocate and professor emeritus at WMU-Cooley Law School.</span></p> <p><a href="https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/contact/00336000014Rjf5AAC/david-lipscomb"><span>David Lipscomb</span></a><span> is Director of the Writing Center at Georgetown University, and Vice Chair of the Center for Plain Language.</span></p> <p><span>Alejandro Martínez García is a researcher at the National Resear