Ah, jargon. To English teachers and discerning writers, it forms the third leg of an evil axis. Passive voice, clichés, jargon — it doesn’t get any worse than that.

Jargon gets this bad rap because it has become equated with a particular kind of language that runs rampant in boardrooms and on videoconferences. You know the kind I’m talking about. Inflated, pretentious, showy. It’s meant to impress with intelligence, but it often confounds understanding.

Jargon has a different side, though. It also refers to the specialized vocabulary and language used by a particular trade, profession, or group. In this sense, jargon isn’t bad at all. It functions as a shorthand code among experts, expediting communication and forming a foundation for newer, better ideas.

So how do you know when jargon is good or bad? Is it okay in technical fields but bad in business? What about in life science marketing? Should you avoid it at all costs? And if you use a workaround, will it help or hinder communication?

To answer these questions, let’s start at the beginning.

The Meaning of Jargon

The word “jargon” derives from the French word jargoun, meaning “twitter.” The twitter in this case refers to the indistinct chatter of woodland birds. Speakers were likely mimicking the sound of bird chatter when they first used the word. 

In short order, however, the word came to denote the specialized languages used by certain ingroups. The cant of thieves, for example, referred to the private language of criminals. If there was honor among thieves, there was also jargon, allowing them to discuss their “work” without revealing their plans to someone passing by.

Over time, other words emerged to describe these specialized vocabulary sets. The definitions below show how jargon compares to these somewhat synonymous terms, including when they were introduced:

jargon (14th century)

The technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group

cant (17th century)

The expression or repetition of conventional or trite opinions or sentiments; the language of the underworld

lingo (17th century)

Strange or incomprehensible language or speech, such as the special vocabulary of a particular field of interest

buzzword (20th century)

An important-sounding, usually technical, word or phrase with little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen

Of all these terms, “buzzword” most clearly evokes the negative connotation of jargon. In fact, its rise in popularity owes something to its unequivocal nature. Jargon can be both good and bad. A buzzword, on the other hand, is never good and draws the ire of a wide audience. Corporate-culture consultant Steele Champion has said this about business buzzwords: “I have literally seen a full-blown argument break out in the office because two people disagreed on whether they thought a certain director was a ‘thought leader’ or not. Now, how stupid is that?”

The History of Business Jargon

No one knows the precise origin of jargon as a business communications concept. By the 16th century, however, specialized language was most certainly interrupting commerce. For example, Thomas Kerridge and Mr. Brown, two traders in India, once complained that their colleagues in Surat (India) used “many good words almost past our understanding.” Many of these “good words” undoubtedly arose as a part of mercantilism. This prevailing economic system from the 16th to the 19th centuries gave us such terms as “zero-sum,” “budget,” and “invest.” 

In the 19th century, pidgin languages developed as merchants from different regions interacted with each other. One of the earliest arose in the port city of Guangzhou, where English and Chinese merchants traded. These linguistic mashups were, in some sense, a form of jargon used among traders to facilitate communication. One thing is clear from the historical record: jargon has long been intertwined with business for a long time.

But it was the 20th century that kicked off the jargon boom. Some scholars point out how post-WWII companies increasingly emphasized the importance of corporate atmosphere and productivity. As businesses evolved from relatively local operations to global conglomerates, understanding worker psychology and sociology became increasingly important. Business jargon served to encourage productivity and to cultivate culture, separating the corporate sphere from others. 

Theorists and writers at the time also contributed various forms of jargon. Phrases such as “low-hanging fruit” and “paradigm shift” all trace their origins to postwar writers discussing developments in business or science. The words then became entrenched over time, as new writers borrowed from their predecessors.

Then the Internet arrived in the 1990s — and so did a surge of specialized language. The word “website” entered the English language in 1993. “Hyperlink” and “cyberspace” entered in the 1980s but only became popular after “World Wide Web” arrived in 1990. In 2007, the Oxford English Dictionary removed some common words to make room for “blog,” “broadband,” “chatroom,” “cut-and-paste,” and “MP3 player.”

And so it went, with emerging technologies ushering in the next generation of words. When ChatGPT and generative AI arrived in 2022, it prompted another round of jargon-making (can you say, “prompt engineering”?) and a renewed call for careful, attentive writing.

Should We Use Jargon?

If anything, history teaches us that jargon is inevitable. Any specialized field or activity will spawn its own vocabulary. Life scientists will speak a common language, as will nuclear physicists, trained chefs, soldiers, sailors, cosmetologists, birdwatchers, comic book fans, gaming nerds, soccer players, and hockey fans. In their respective groups, jargon serves to connect members and make them feel part of the team, just as much as their uniforms and equipment do. Using jargon in these situations is acceptable and, in many ways, necessary to function in the group.

The concern arises when writers and speakers of one group co-opt vocabulary from another. This is often done with good intentions — a term or expression from one field makes a satisfying metaphor in another. For astronomers, a light-year refers to a unique and identifiable value (the distance that light travels in one year). For businesspeople, a light-year refers to any extremely large quantity. It could be distance, but it could be time or any other quality. You can imagine someone in HR saying this as they evaluate a stack of résumés: “This candidate has light-years more talent than any other we’ve seen.”

Often, these metaphors are effective. They communicate a sense of something instantly and sometimes with a touch of surprise. If I say someone is “extremely talented,” you might not sit up and take notice. But if I say someone has “light-years more talent,” you will likely pay more attention and truly understand that the candidate is something special.

In other instances, however, a speaker or writer may use jargon for nefarious purposes. There have been cases of corporate leaders using jargon to confuse or obfuscate communication. For example, corporate executives/leaders will often use euphemistic language to discuss upcoming layoffs or firings to prevent anger among their employees.

Life science marketers fall victim to this too. They use words like “innovation,” “solution,” “revolutionary” and “state-of-the-art” to describe features or benefits that don’t live up to their word choice. Over time, this can dilute the meaning — and impact — of words and can turn off the very audience they’re trying to attract.

How to Avoid Unnecessary Jargon

So, what’s a poor life science marketer or communicator to do? How do you know what is and what’s not jargon? And how do you evaluate when it will elevate understanding and not diminish it? Here are four steps you can take:

Know Your Audience

This is marketing communications 101: know your audience so you can craft messaging they will hear and understand. If you’re a technical person communicating to a group of laypeople or a mixed audience, you will want to reduce how much jargon you use. And if you must include specialized vocabulary, be sure to explain it plainly. Use metaphors and analogies and always provide the full names for acronyms and initialisms.

Curate Jargons

As you become more aware of jargon, you can spot it in the writing of others. Keep a running list of words, terms, and phrases that you can use as a cheat sheet. In addition to other terms identified throughout this article, the examples of jargon below can serve as a starting point. Many of these offending pieces of language have been around for decades, so they can be hard to spot. The list serves to remind you of words to avoid, but it also provides the source materials for the next tip.

• architect (as a verb)
• bandwidth
• cherry-picking
• circle back
• competitive advantage 
• deep dive
• disintermediation/disintermediating 
• headcount
• ideate
• incent/incentivize
• leverage/leveraging
• onboarding
• out of pocket
• resonate
• rocket science
• slippery slope
• synergy
• think outside the box
• unpack
• utilize

Study the Origins of Words

Once you have a list of words, it helps to research their etymology. If you understand where words came from, as well as their original meaning, you can choose your vocabulary more precisely. For example, did you know the word “leverage” traces its roots back to “lever,” a type of simple machine? Like any simple machine, a lever increases the mechanical advantage of the person using it. Think of a crowbar prying off the lid of a crate. By the mid-1800s, this noun entered the mainstream, with writers using “leverage” to describe any type of advantage (not just mechanical advantage).

Ruthlessly Edit Your Own Writing

Finally, you must review your own writing with a cold, merciless eye. Look for jargon that slipped through the cracks (see what I did?) and evaluate usage thoughtfully. Even if a sentence sounds good, ask whether it makes sense.

Consider the sentence below, which uses the word “leverage” as it was defined above:

Our software leverages terabytes of information to help you turn data into decisions.

This is a perfectly common type of construction in marketing writing, but is it truly accurate? And does it even make sense? Taken literally, this sentence implies that the software applies a force to the information. Using the expanded sense of the word, the software provides an advantage of some sort, which the software developers would likely affirm. But in general, it’s a little vague what the advantage is and how it works.

Now consider this rewrite:

Our software processes terabytes of information to help you turn data into decisions.

Or maybe this:

Our software performs calculations on terabytes of information, helping you turn data into decisions.

In both rewrites, the word “leverage” has been replaced with terms that help the reader at least get a sense of what the software is doing. Ultimately, the writer may decide to keep “leverage” in the sentence, but the important point is that he or she carefully evaluates the possibilities and makes a choice best suited to the audience and the context of the communication. Regardless, the writer’s goal should always be clarity, consistency, and simplicity.

Judging Jargon

Technical jargon has its place, but corporate jargon should be avoided for the same reasons technical jargon should be avoided when writing science for the public: it can exclude certain groups from the conversation, confuse the meaning of content for those unfamiliar with the terms being used, and is often riddled with clichés. If you’re ready to work with an agency that has accomplished writers and designers, science literacy to grasp technical concepts, and expertise with language to judge whether certain terms and phrases are jargons, contact us today.