This is spot on. Being able to express ideas without jargon is to me a sign of mastery. You've learned the subject so well you can convey it in layman terms. I learned the most out of computer science from talks given by such people.

I feel like its the exact same with the Agile crowd and their daily stand-ups, burn-down charts, velocity and other forms of cargo cult management. I haven't seen anyone explaining all of it without massive jargon.

Another form would be this trend of adding "awesome" to everything, ie.: "build something awesome!" While the jargon isn't advanced its still the very same lack of scientific integrity.

Jargon is not necessarily a bad thing. It is often necessary to be precise. I can describe the "meaning" of a computer program to a layperson but when talking with other experts it becomes essential to distinguish between, say, operational and denotational semantics. That's jargon but it is absolutely necessary for good work.

I agree, but even in those cases if you can't explain it without jargon its often a sign of a shallow understanding to begin with.

I feel that if you can explain a concept without jargon such that a layperson understands it, then you can be much more precise to experts when using said jargon. Because your understanding is also much more precise as well.

In science, we use a lot of words that were borrowed from Latin and Classical Greek. It is an interesting mental exercise, to imagine yourself trying to explain notions of modern science and artifacts of modern life to a person from, say, 2,500 years ago, whose native language was Latin or Greek. Not only would it be difficult to transfer our jargon - because the the original meaning of the word might have been different (why is 'atom' divisible? or, why is amber a basic constituent of matter?), many things we are so used to would make little sense (what is it that you are computing all the time?).

I'm confused by your use of the word "amber". Did you mean to write lepton or quark? I realize the irony in this comment.

The Greek word for 'amber' is ἤλεκτρον (ēlektron).

Thanks for sharing; I feel the same way you do, and you've put in into words more succinctly that I could have.

In the name of accuracy, I'd just like to point out that the athlete was probably say he was "hoping to medal in the Olympics", i.e. he was using the verb form of medal. It might not be common to use it that way, but it's common enough that it probably doesn't count as jargon.

It was deliberate. I don't believe at the time there was a common verb form of medal in UK English (It was Matthew Pinsent UK rower educated at Eton and Oxford and therefore would likely have known this was not a plain English word and therefore industry jargon) (although there clearly now is a verb form, although it should be frowned upon IMHO). It was spoken, so I wrote it how I heard it (some years ago). Medal was not a verb, so he must have meant meddle!

A lot of this is also about understanding your audience. I will happily use jargon when talking to peers and plain language when talking to others.

The problem on the internet is when content leaks. Sometimes a piece of writing meant for peers gets shared to others and you get accused of using jargon. Or inside jokes.

In reality the problem is that at first you have a period when you're finding each other's common jargon. You think someone is a peer and you use jargon. If they seem confused, you explain.

But some people feign understanding for fear of seeming dumb. Then you are in trouble. You become the pompous ass with jargon and they learn nothing.

Maybe the answer is to never start with jargon and only upgrade if the other person turns out to be a peer.

But that often offends them if they are indeed a peer.

I think the GP hit the nail on the head with the phrasing "anyone who uses jargon unnecessarily".

Jargon is meant to make communication clearer and faster between peers. If it is making it less clear instead, there is something very wrong.

I once worked at a company that had so much jargon they published a glossary on their Sharepoint site, and a list of TLA's (Including 'TLA' itself as the joke goes...it means 'Three Letter Acronym' for the uninitiated.

This is what I might call, 'treating the symptom of bad communication and not the cause'.

I think companies use Jargon to help instill a cult community on purpose. I just proposed the idea of creating such a glossary as you mentioned. I can't change a company with close to 100,000 people so I assimilate to get my pay check.

One company I was at had a jar in each conference room. When you used an internal name or acronym without first defining it, you had to put a $1 in the acronym jar. This was used to buy the team lunch. They had to abolish the policy as it was seen illegal to force such behavior. It worked very well while it lasted though.

I don't worry if they think I'm a pompous ass and continue to use jargon. Their opinion is only a reflection of their insecurity or fear of seeming dumb. And, they are being dumb.

People use new jargon I'm unfamiliar with all the time at work. I always ask them to clarify what they mean. That's how you get smart and knowledgable and don't live in fear.