Workplace jargon Thread poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
|
|---|
Another interesting article published on “The Economist” on the 15th June, this time on workplace jargon:
“The upside of workplace jargon
Acronyms and slang can help build cultures and improve efficiency
An idea to run up the flagpole: jargon gets an overly bad press. Not the kind of jargon that involves using the words “flagpole” and “run up”, but the kind that binds teams together. The kind that is exemplified by the term “nub”. In the ... See more Another interesting article published on “The Economist” on the 15th June, this time on workplace jargon:
“The upside of workplace jargon
Acronyms and slang can help build cultures and improve efficiency
An idea to run up the flagpole: jargon gets an overly bad press. Not the kind of jargon that involves using the words “flagpole” and “run up”, but the kind that binds teams together. The kind that is exemplified by the term “nub”. In the very unlikely event that you find yourself on board a submarine but are not a member of the crew, you will be a nub.
A nub is a “non-useful body”—someone who uses up oxygen, food and space and offers nothing in return. A nub is someone who is not on the team, and the opacity of jargon gives the word extra bite. Only insiders know what it means.
Useful crew members have their own names. This cast of characters includes nukes, coners, shower techs and other bubbleheads whose jobs may include looking after Sherwood Forest. (If you need to ask, you are a nub.) Although submarines are unusual environments, the use of jargon to signify specific practices, objects and people is prevalent in workplaces everywhere.
Some of this jargon is not much more than slang. The “blue goose” is what White House staffers call the travelling presidential lectern. The “grid” is the nickname for the diary of planned policy announcements by the British government. Doctors have a private vocabulary for patients when they are out of earshot. “Status dramaticus” is how some medics diagnose people who have not much wrong with them but behave as though death is nigh; “ash cash” is the fee that British doctors pocket for signing cremation forms.
Such shared language is not exactly high-minded but it does serve a useful purpose—creating a sense of tribe and of belonging. Each company generates its own particular lexicon. The ge logo is also known as “the meatball” by people inside the industrial firm. At Stripe, a digital-payments company, hiring-committee meetings are called “tropes”. A “fourth leader” is what journalists at The Economist call lighthearted opinion articles. No one knows why; it is usually the fifth of five editorials. But the knowing is enough. The code confers membership.
Jargon can spread for practical reasons as well as cultural ones. The airline industry has the usual slang, from “deadheads” (off-duty crew on a commercial flight) to “George” (a common nickname for the autopilot). But codifying knowledge in agreed ways can be a serious business. Well over 1,000 passengers and crew lost their lives between 1976 and 2000 in accidents where misunderstandings over language were found to have played a role. Pilots use highly standardised and scripted terminology in order to reduce the scope for potentially fatal errors.
Terms can arise as a way of increasing efficiency. A paper published last year, by Ronald Burt of Bocconi University and Ray Reagans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looked at how jargon emerges naturally among groups. It describes an experiment in which volunteers are assigned to teams. Each team member is separately assigned a set of symbols, and one symbol is common to all of them. Team members must quickly identify this shared symbol by sending messages to each other that describe what they have been given.
To start with, the teams use quasi-sentences and generic words to get across what they are seeing (one symbol “looks like its leg is out in a kicking motion”). Soon enough everyone in the team is calling it “kicking man” or “kicker”. As rounds progress a tacitly agreed vocabulary allows teams to identify the common symbol more and more quickly. Different teams alight on different forms of jargon for each symbol, but the effect is the same: everyone knows what is meant and things get done faster.
Jargon can be desperately unhelpful. The criminal-justice system is made more intimidating, to victims and suspects alike, by confusing terminology. Conversations between doctors and patients go much better when everyone understands each other. One reason why management jargon arouses so much irritation is because it usually substitutes for something that was doing the job perfectly well. No one hears the words “Let’s talk about it later” and feels baffled. Plenty of people do hear the phrase “Let’s put a pin in it” and wish they had a sharp object to hand.
There is an awful lot of non-useful blather out there, in other words. But the fact that jargon emerges spontaneously and repeatedly suggests it has its merits. In the right circumstances it can help build a culture and act as a useful shorthand. If you think all jargon is worthless, it may be time to circle back.”
Is jargon good or bad? When I started working for an EU Institution in 1986, I was very often confused by the so-called Brussels-speak (things like acquis communautaire, Troika and, in particular, the multitude of acronyms - CAP, CFP, ECI, EEA, EEAS, to name just a few). Over the years I learned some of the EU jargon but keeping up with all the different acronyms was/is a tricky task as a new one is born almost every day…
Have a great weekend and good reading! ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Isn't this how languages evolve? A new word is coined, or an old word repurposed, to describe either a new concept, or an old concept in a new context. Like memes, these words gather in groups according to who is using them, and when.
Eventually a new sub-language is created. It may spread beyond its original peer group and become common currency, or it may remain confined to its user group until it withers away.
And you don't need exotic contexts like a submarine. Just... See more Isn't this how languages evolve? A new word is coined, or an old word repurposed, to describe either a new concept, or an old concept in a new context. Like memes, these words gather in groups according to who is using them, and when.
Eventually a new sub-language is created. It may spread beyond its original peer group and become common currency, or it may remain confined to its user group until it withers away.
And you don't need exotic contexts like a submarine. Just think of all the different words for sheep. ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Just think of all the different words for sheep.
Um… er… um…
Stumped.
| | | |
Ice Scream wrote: Just think of all the different words for sheep. Um… er… um… Stumped.
Come on, Chris, you can do better than that. How about ram, ewe, lamb, tup, wether and bellwether, for starters.
A friend of mine who liked words and did a lot of crosswords used to make a note in the back of her dictionary every time she found a new word for a salmon at some point in its life cycle. I can't remember now how many she'd managed to accumulate, but I'm pretty sure she'd reached double figures.
Or if sheep and salmon aren't your thing, how about worms?
We used to call these brandlings when I was a kid.
| | |
|
|
|
Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:41
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Let me count the ways | Jun 30, 2023 |
Philip Lees wrote: Ice Scream wrote: Just think of all the different words for sheep. Um… er… um… Stumped. Come on, Chris, you can do better than that. How about ram, ewe, lamb, tup, wether and bellwether, for starters.
You'd think he'd do better than that, living in Wales eh.
Hogget and mutton also spring to the mind of this unrepentant carnivore.
And if we're counting, then we cannot pass over yan, tan, tethera...
Dan
| | | | | Counting sheep | Jun 30, 2023 |
Well I don’t know some of those, and having kept sheep I can add things like shearling, but there aren’t (m)any alternative names for plain sheep is what I meant. Ram, ewe etc aren’t jargon. I suppose shearling is though🙄😂
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 04:41
English to Russian
+ ...
| Downside of workplace jargon, or some hidden dangers | Jun 30, 2023 |
I’ll begin with an example from my own experience. Many, many years ago, when I was just starting to work for the space industry I was so excited and so engulfed in learning the prime subject and, obviously, at least a dozen of related fields that I got seriously behind on both “regular” reading and live communication with friends and family; 60-70-hour weeks of work and self-study 24/7 have been consuming all my time, strength and desire for additional communication and socializing. IS... See more I’ll begin with an example from my own experience. Many, many years ago, when I was just starting to work for the space industry I was so excited and so engulfed in learning the prime subject and, obviously, at least a dozen of related fields that I got seriously behind on both “regular” reading and live communication with friends and family; 60-70-hour weeks of work and self-study 24/7 have been consuming all my time, strength and desire for additional communication and socializing. ISS-related subjects are stuffed with hundreds, likely thousands of acronyms and lots of, oh well, maybe not pure jargon but very specific ways of putting certain things and actions. Eventually all my training and hard labor paid off and soon enough me and my colleagues could knock off their feet any listeners, including fellow interpreters outside of our fields, especially during simo at a cosmic speed. Even astronauts have complimented us claiming that what we do is impossible😊 Beautiful, right? But…
On one nice day I was assigned to do a simo conference largely consisting of speeches, greetings, and congratulations using a sort of half-technical, half-generally descriptive language just to illustrate some achievements, the kind you can find in Popular Mechanics or National Geographic, for example. The speed was generally very comfortable for conference interpretation. OMG!!! After all my efforts to perfect that “bird’s language” I was living with, I found myself struggling with building “normal”, eloquent, stylistically pleasing phrases with a proper touch of humor delivered by a speaker, correct idioms in Russian etc etc. I didn’t fail but it kept hitting me after every 3rd sentence that it could and should have been delivered in a better way. I was told that I was overthinking and overcritical, that I did great etc but it didn’t help; I was really upset.
Morale: too much love for jargon that eases the communication can make human brain rusty or lazy, even kill any desire to bother with better wording and true language improvement. Jargon may be very useful for a team of specialists and I am not saying that the space community, which consists of many top guns in science and technology, speaks bird’s language only, far from it but the danger is still there because, as it turns out, a simplistic way to communicate is very much capable of extrapolating itself and encroaching on our everyday talking habits. Just look at the text slang…
I’ve read somewhere that dolphins use about 2 thousand different signals and sounds and find it plenty😊 They manage to hunt together, have fun together, warn each other, protect their young together… And they definitely have a sense of team and belonging 😊 I just hope that humans won’t downsize too much 😊
We care and don't yield to that simplification because we are linguists by trade, but not all humans are. ▲ Collapse
| | | | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Workplace jargon | Protemos translation business management system | Create your account in minutes, and start working! 3-month trial for agencies, and free for freelancers!
The system lets you keep client/vendor database, with contacts and rates, manage projects and assign jobs to vendors, issue invoices, track payments, store and manage project files, generate business reports on turnover profit per client/manager etc.
More info » |
| | Trados Studio 2022 Freelance | The leading translation software used by over 270,000 translators.
Designed with your feedback in mind, Trados Studio 2022 delivers an unrivalled, powerful desktop
and cloud solution, empowering you to work in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
