[Sussex] Do we confuse you?

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

nik butler <nik at reducedhackers.com> writes:

> yes .. but none of the above carries abbriviations or jargon !

Ah..  but funny though.  Besides, Catch 22 is jargon in itself.  

> I do feel though that possibly the media itelf is to blame for useless
> oversimplification and word creation of issues in an attempt to make a
> 200 word story from a topic which requires 1000 words to
> understand. 

Absolutely.  The vast majority of acronyms are generated by marketing
people in my experience.  The only things that geeks abbreviate are
things that are so commonly used that they are unmistakable  (at least
for knowledgeable people, the general public wouldn't understand what
"AOP", for example,  was even if we expand it fully).

> There is a Campaign group called "The Campaign for Plain
> English" and even their title is a clear statement of what they wish
> to achieve. In Ten years of campaigning however they have made little
> real impact on how people are talking and communicating between
> eachother.  
----- %< ---------

Interesting.  My wife is a member of a similar group who are active in
the legal profession.  Indeed the law is an area where "jargon" in the
form of latin and contracted words (like "herewithinafter") have
become such an issue that they are basically outlawed now.  Even so
training solicitors to write in a clear manner is major task.


-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org