“When Microsoft last week announced the launch of its new ‘hypervisor-based virtualisation technology,’ Financial Times columnist Michael Skapinker says, “I did not have a clue what it meant, but no doubt software people did.”

This is the thing about jargon… Skapinker writes:

Any group that works, plays or lives together develops its own vocabulary, often incomprehensible to anyone else. This is as true of investment banks as it is of street gangs. It often seems the purpose is to exclude outsiders, but a more important reason is to give names to things that all involved understand.

There’s nothing wrong with brevity among coworkers — shortcuts get us where we want to go faster. It’s that first thing — the exclusionary language — that gives jargon a bad name. Jargon, including the endless acronyms people throw off in the workplace, can leave newcomers feeling like outsiders if we’re not careful (by which I mean full of care for folks who should be included rather than excluded from our conversations).

But knowledge is power, right? And, pitiful as it is, the slight power imbalance conveyed by leaving someone out seems to be about all some people have going for them, so…

Something called the Local Government Association in Great Britain has a list of 100 banned words or phrases along with plain language substitutes. The list including gems like:

Beacon – leading light

Best Practice – best way

Bottom-Up – listening to people

Core Value – belief

Coterminosity – all singing from the same hymn sheet

Place shaping – creating places where people can thrive

Predictors of Beaconicity – No idea

Preventative services – protecting the most vulnerable

Priority – most important

You get the idea…

What keeps this from just being a cute business story is the frequency with which our language about God excludes people who don’t know the jargon of faith. Surely that can’t be about petty power plays can it? Why not speak the plainest language we have to enhance our communication about the Creator?

Saved — rescued

Sin — wrongdoing, brokenness, f***ing up

Confession — coming clean

You get the idea…

Questions for Discussion

• Does jargon exclude employees, vendors, partners or customers from communicating in your workplace? If so, what can you do about that in the next seven days?
• Does jargon keep people from understanding what you believe about the goodness of God? If so, what can you do about that?