| Seconded. It’s often valuable to use jargon from another discipline in discussions. It sort of kicks discussions out of ruts. Many different disciplines use different terminology for similar basic principles. How those other disciplines extend these principles may lead to entirely different approaches and major (orders of magnitude) improvements. I’ve done it myself a few times. On another note, the issue of “jargon” as an impediment to communication has led the US Military culture to develop the idea of “terms of art”. The areas of responsibility of a senior officer are so broad that they enter into practically every professional discipline. The officer has to know when they hear an unfamiliar term that they are being thrown off by terminology rather than lack of understanding. Hence the phrase “terms of art”. It flags everyone that this is the way these other professionals describe this, so don’t get thrown or feel dumb. No one expects the officer to use (although they could) a “term of art”, but rather to understand and address the underlying principle. It’s also a way to grease the skids of discussion ahead of time. “No, General, we won’t think you’re dumb if you don’t use the jargon, but what do you think of the underlying idea...” Might be a good phrase to use in other professional cultures. In particular in IT, because of the recursion of the phrase “term of art” being itself be a term of art until it’s generally accepted. GNU and all that... |