Page 65 - The Voice of Authority

where. Just because you hear someone else spewing out
garbage doesn’t mean that the message was clear the first
time, that the format was easy to follow, that the document
got action, or that the argument changed minds.

Elevating the Importance of What They Do

People use jargon to create meaning out of the mundane
in the same way cooks use steak sauce to flavor a tough T-
bone. Nurses no longer make rounds and “give out medi-
cine,” but rather “dispense
medications.” Instead of
People use jargon to cre- police “pulling suspects
ate meaning out of the from their cars,” they now
mundane in the same “extract them from their
way cooks use steak sauce vehicles.” The Information
to flavor a tough T-bone. Technology (IT) expert can
either “burn an extra copy
of a DVD” or “use a pe-
ripheral drive to create a set of redundant files stored on a
digital video disc.” Your Web master may tell you either
that the text on the Web page has been changed or that “the
HTML source codes were manipulated to display an alter-
nate message in the browser.”
In fact, the whole jargon routine at work reminds me of
a scene in Batman Returns. After Batman (Bruce Wayne in
costume) is exposed to poisonous gas, a friend named Mr.
Fox—a scientist from Wayne Enterprises—comes to his aid.

Mr. Fox: I analyzed your blood, isolating the recep-
tor compounds in the protein-based catalyst.
Bruce Wayne: Am I meant to understand any of
that?

Is It Clear? 53