Just about everyone complains about other people using jargon. Common explanations of its use range from the paranoid ("They just don't want the rest of us to understand what they're plotting") to lay psychology ("They must feel inferior, so they inflate their egos by using words nobody else understands"). Yet, virtually all fields have a jargon used only among themselves, so maybe the explanation is that it serves a practical function.
Admittedly, jargon can be used for all of the wrong reasons, but a
valid reason is to enhance understanding without a lot of verbiage. As an example, take
the word "cleistogamous". It certainly qualifies as jargon and even sounds
formidable. Botanists understand it to mean "referring to flowers that don't
open and are self-pollinated". Now ask yourself, would you rather see that word
four or five times on a page or to see repeated, over and over, "having flowers
that don't open and are self-pollinated". In fact, I'm almost ready to say
I'd prefer "cleistogamous" even if I didn't know what it meant!
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Cleistogamy in Salvia roemeriana.