Why do you need to speak in Technical Jargon?

Viraj Wickramasinghe
3 min readNov 6, 2018

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In the fact to answer the question what is technical jargon, look at the below example.

Try to generate the CD-ROM array, maybe it will parse the optical transmitter!

Looking at the above sentence, some of you may understand what is says(If you deal with IT field). But some of you can’t. That set of technical words are called Technical Jargon.

Technically It is a set of words/phrases that express some meaning to the reader. In a depth, technical jargon refers to the words/expressions that belongs to a certain field of knowledge which can only be understand by the specialized people who work on those areas.

Then comes the question is it necessary to use technical jargon?

Answer to the above question is that, it depends on the audience that you are addressing to. If you are addressing to some professionals who knows technical stuff, use of jargon is really helpful. But if the audience is general public, use of jargon will not help.

If I go back to the 14th century, word jargon was migrated from the French with the meaning of ‘the twittering and chattering of birds’. Later on it changed to ‘meaningless talk’ or ‘gibberish’.

Let’s get deeper into the Jargon

According to the jargon classification, it separate out into 3 types.

Commonly shortened to abbreviations or acronyms and common in writing. Depends on the rate of change in professional area.

Long Latin words and Long-winded Abstract nouns which is complex and impersonal style.

Often derived from other fields, especially sports and science. Not much used in writing.

The value of jargon

In my perspective use of jargon need to be done as long as it is explained to the audience clearly. Use of technical jargon among the professionals can save your money as well as time rather than explaining it in plain English. On the other hand each and every technical word cannot be expressed in the plain English with the accurate and concise meaning. On that scenario, use of jargon is necessary. From my point of view jargon should be used among the public with the clear meaning. From that they get to know the depth of the field and starts to surf through the field.

From a real world example,

If a patient is diagnosed by the doctor and illness is identified. What happens if doctor explains about the illness with all kinds of medical terms? Simply a normal patient wont understand. It is the responsibility of the doctor to use the medical terms with the clear explanations to the patient. That is the correct use of jargon with non professionals.

Finally when using jargon it is important to identify the audience you are addressing to and identify the jargon that suited to the audience. For a example for using medical jargon with IT professionals will be no use. So need to identify correct set of audience with correct set of jargon to be use.

As always, I welcome feedback and constructive criticism and can be reached me via LinkedIn and GitHub.

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Viraj Wickramasinghe

Former Software Engineering Intern at DirectFN. Reading BSc(Hons) in IT specialized in Software Engineering at SLIIT. Writer at www.techcoderguru.com