Business Success with Open Source

On the Matter of Jargon

Let’s talk for a moment about, well, talking—more specifically, about language and communication and how the former often defeats attempts at the latter.

All too often we put together a string of words that we understand without pausing to consider whether the recipient will as well. We assume, and often incorrectly, leading to a failure in basic communication requirements. The prize for the most common type of words to cause miscommunication goes to jargon, which quickly turns even your native language into a foreign one, depending on the audience. Every industry has its own dedicated vocabulary—its own jargon—that its practitioners create and share. This jargon frequently includes a metaphorical alphabet soup of acronyms, ...