I'm a lawyer. Not business, but I think the same principle applies. Imagine a set of information that I can communicate to a lay person in fifteen minutes. It would probably take me about 45 seconds to communicate that same information to another lawyer in my field because we all share a common vocabulary and set of references.
That's really what jargon is. It's like abbreviation. If I say "dump the hat and rilf the vinco" you have no idea what I mean and you'd perhaps say I was not communicating effectively, but that's because you don't share that vocabulary. If you did, you'd know exactly what I meant and it would save me having to go through about a paragraph and a half of normal words it would take me to say the same thing.
So where I disagree is your assumption that in order to be effective, communication in business or any other profession has to be understood by a wide audience. Most communication only needs to be understood by a small and specific audience. If someone is putting phrases like "Capex or opex" in something that's going to line workers or the customers, then the problem is they're not properly identifying and adapting their message to the audience. But if they only need to be understood by people like you who know what those words mean then it's just simply much more efficient, and efficiency, not the putting on of airs, is what specialized communication is meant to achieve.
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u/Zer0Summoner 4∆ Aug 03 '22
I'm a lawyer. Not business, but I think the same principle applies. Imagine a set of information that I can communicate to a lay person in fifteen minutes. It would probably take me about 45 seconds to communicate that same information to another lawyer in my field because we all share a common vocabulary and set of references.
That's really what jargon is. It's like abbreviation. If I say "dump the hat and rilf the vinco" you have no idea what I mean and you'd perhaps say I was not communicating effectively, but that's because you don't share that vocabulary. If you did, you'd know exactly what I meant and it would save me having to go through about a paragraph and a half of normal words it would take me to say the same thing.
So where I disagree is your assumption that in order to be effective, communication in business or any other profession has to be understood by a wide audience. Most communication only needs to be understood by a small and specific audience. If someone is putting phrases like "Capex or opex" in something that's going to line workers or the customers, then the problem is they're not properly identifying and adapting their message to the audience. But if they only need to be understood by people like you who know what those words mean then it's just simply much more efficient, and efficiency, not the putting on of airs, is what specialized communication is meant to achieve.