One of the reasons why I got involved in blogging, more than two decades ago, was that I noticed my writing style was deteriorating from all the legal writing I did professionally. Nothing is worse for a writer than to have to produce jargon filled, formulaic texts, frequently. That is why so much academic writing is painful now to read.
Another Thing to Blame on Lawyers
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
It’s the same way I can tell who has too much formal study in the field of education. The jargon makes me batty. I had zero formal education training when I began teaching and my current principal, while a good and supportive administrator, is a walking educational cliche and jargon machine. It is not English being used.
Engineers write well if you like blunt Bullets.
– Is there a better way?
A generation ago, it was business executives and, especially, the producers of trade books on business who seemed to be the progenitors of this. (Though the most obtrusive public example was Alexander Haig, career military turned business executive).
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A period piece
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The Chronicles of Doodah: Walker, George Lee: 9780395407264: Amazon.com: Books
Copywriting preserves the right of the writer to say what the writer intends to say,
In Phd. degrees the student is given the opportunity to defend and explain what the student really means to say as opposed to being misunderstood.
Josh, once we had “teachers” and “teaching”. Now, and I shudder, we have “educators” and “pedagogy”. Sometimes I think that the New Testament is the Old, played in reverse. And we are now at the Tower of Babel.
SouthCoast,
When I was hired to teach for the first time I was told straight up it was in favor NOT to have the formal education training, because it was assumed I would essentially regurgitate whatever laboratory conditions I had been taught. But something changed, in the past couple decades especially.
Ugh, “pedagogy”!
“Nothing is worse for a writer than to have to produce jargon filled, formulaic texts, frequently.”
Seems to me there’s a matter of perspective here.
During my time in the military, I wrote many documents, yet I do not deem myself a writer. Nor would I consider a doctor, lawyer, or other professional, nor a documentarian to be a writer. These contexts will require formulaic writing and lots of “jargon”.
Then again, “jargon” isn’t jargon within profession. If I’m reading something an engineer wrote for other engineers, ..engineers will understand without further explanation. I may need to take a class–or several classes–to understand it.
If it’s “dry” stuff to a “layman”, it may be exciting to those trained in the field.
If I seek a good book for fun, …I might look for Shakespeare or Dickens instead.
Because the IRS tax laws treat gifts and what is given differently. It is now $16,000 a person can give another person in one year. However I am of the belief that diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
I always thought that jargon was a method of hiding things and true meanings but I worked for the government.
I have written nuclear regulatory technobabble all my life. US NRC reviewers have pronounced my work “acceptable,” the highest praise one can possibly get. Its indecipherability and incomprehensibility by the average person equal anything that a lawyer would write.
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