Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch popularized Jargon as the name for verbal fuzziness of various sorts--wordiness, the use of abstract for concrete words, the use of big words and the use of words that add nothing to the meaning of a statement. Jargon includes the use of threadbare expressions, trite or hackneyed phrases, stereotypes, and cliches. The use of Jargon usually reflects non-thinking on the part of the writer.

"Caution is its father; the instinct to save everything and especially trouble; its mother, Indolence. It looks precise, but is not. It is, in these times safe;a thousand men have said it before and not one to your knowledge has been prosecuted for it. And so, like respectability in Chicago, Jargon stalks unchecked in our midst. It is becoming the language of Parliament; it has become the medium through which Boards of Government, County Councils, Syndicates, Committees, Commercial Firms express the processes as well as the conclusions of their thought and so voice the reason of their being. . . . Jargon is by no means accurate, its method being to walk circumspectly around its target; and its faith, that having done so its has either hit the bull's-eye or at least achieved something equivalent, and safer . . . .

"Have you begun to detect the two main vices of Jargon: The first is that it uses circumlocution rather than short straight speech. It says: 'In the case of John Jenkins deceased, the coffin' when it means 'John Jenkins's coffin'; and its yea is not yea, neither is its nay nay; but its answer is in the affirmative or in the negative, as the foolish and superfluous 'case' may be. The second vice is that it habitually chooses vague wooly abstract nouns rather than concrete ones." Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.

"The maxim that easy reading makes hard writing is nowhere more apparent than in diction, for extra care on the part of the writer greatly increases the ease with which a reader can grasp the ideas. And the reverse of this, 'easy writing makes hard reading' is painfully obvious, because the writer who takes the first solution to his problem of diction usually leaves serious difficulties for the reader to face. The simple fact is that if the writer does not do the hard work of saying the right thing, the reader will have to do it--that is, if the reader consents to read on." Richard Weaver.

Never use the following words unless avoiding them would create even worse circumlocution: aspect, case, character, condition, degree, factor, feature, instance, nature, phase, situation.

Hamlet's Soliloquy in Jargon.

"To be, or the contrary: Whether the former or the latter be preferable would seem to admit of some difference of opinion; the answer in the present case being of an affirmative or of a negative character according as to whether one elects on the one hand to mentally suffer the disfavor of fortune, albeit in an extreme degree, or on the other to boldly envisage adverse conditions in the prospect of eventually bringing them to a conclusion. The condition of sleep is similar to, if not indistinguishable from that of death; and with the addition of finality the former might be considered identical with the latter; so that in this connection it might be argued with regard to sleep, that, could the addition be effected, a termination would be put to the endurance of a multiplicity of inconveniences, not to mention a number of downright evils incidental to our fallen humanity, and thus a consummation achieved of a most gratifying nature." Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.

COMMENTS ON JARGON

"'Jargon' has two meanings. It is language peculiar to a trade or profession, what we sometimes call 'Shoptalk.' and it is the use of that language outside that trade or profession, as well as the use of over general, empty words and combinations of such words. Jargon is offensive when its purpose is to create effect rather than meaning; like euphemism and inflated language, it is verbal pomposity, parade stuff, portentously empty. . . .

"Naturally, Jargon will be most readily apparent to those who read and write a great deal. Students finding themselves charged with use of jargon not uncommonly protest their innocence and their inability to see how they have erred. This protest is entirely understandable, but it is also evidence of the subtle power Jargon has over all of us. Even the most literate must make constant and conscious effort to avoid resorting to the convenient but vapid words we call 'jargon.' But if they are so convenient, why then, one may ask, should one avoid them so scrupulously? The best answer to that question is given by Justice Holmes in a letter to Harold Laske: 'The minute a phrase becomes current it becomes an apology for not thinking to the end of the sentence.' Jargon provides a way of not thinking and of not seeing. It is, therefore, an arch-enemy of a good style." Harold C. Martin. The Logic and Rhetoric of Exposition.

Jargon: The Degenerative Disease of Prose.

"Jargon is produced by writers who do not think out what they want to say, but find a worn groove in the language down which they let their thoughts slide. . . .

"We have to step up, however, to a somewhat more exalted plane to find the stereotypes which most damage modern prose and which are likely to do the student most harm. These stereotypes are such expressions as 'along the lines of,' 'in the last analysis,' 'socio-economic considerations,' 'the world of business affairs,' 'according to a usually reliable source.' Such locutions puff out many an official document, many a political speech, and is must be admitted, many a professor's lecture or article." Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. Modern Rhetoric