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When doing my own writing, I try to remember a quotation from Kenneth Hudson's The Jargon of the Professions:

> The best minds in any profession are never guilty of jargon, expect when they are very tired. Pedestrian minds are drawn towards it automatically and to the most frightening extent. Jargon, one could suggest, is the natural weapon of highly paid people with very little of any value to say. It is a sad and ironical comment on our society that many people feel released from the pressure to use jargon only when they have reached the top of their profession, by which time it may be too late to change one's habits. , however one might wish to. Ambitious people, still busy climbing the ladder, may well consider it professional dangerous to use straightforward language. One therefore has the paradox that only the person who has finally arrived, with [their] reputation secure, can afford to be simple and jargon-free. Lesser mortals appear to need their jargon, as a membership-badge of their profession. They do not have the confidence to face the world without it.

Do I escape the tendency towards jargon? No, not by a long shot, but pieces like this are a good reminder as to why it is worth the effort to keep trying.



The target audience is other founders.

And so just like you wouldn't remove the jargon from a medical journal not sure why you would want to in this case.


Founder is not a profession, and this kind of impenetrable jargon here doesn't add value to the conversation. It's marketing talk where some jargon words make sense while others are more of a "professional fence".


In every field there’s usually a few brilliant minds who can boil complex ideas down to simple words. Even if your audience is very technical, they’ll still appreciate when a writer takes the effort to find the clearest way to say things, keeping the “jargon” to the bare minimum. The eraser is the writer’s friend.


> The eraser is the writer’s friend.

I'd say pretty much everybody's :)


You should see some of the [redacted] reports that are presented to senior management.

I saw one where they where talking about keyword density and counting the names of the <div> elements.

The name of the consultancy is redacted




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