Jargon

Professionals often use industry-specific jargon - meaning words and acronyms specific to their particular field of work - to help them communicate more quickly and clearly among other professionals in their field. As a professional, you should learn and use the jargon of your industry, but you should be careful to use more common language when speaking with people less familiar with the terms you are using, or you may run the risk of coming across as arrogant or condescending.

We can divide jargon into two categories: terms and acronyms.

For example, there are terms specific to the medical profession that have made their way into common language, such as Hypertension, Anemia, and Osteoporosis; but there are also terms that are far less common that are practically only known to professionals in the medical field, such as Hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state, Osteochondritis dissecans, and Pancreaticoduodenectomy.

Likewise, there are medical acronyms that have made their way into common language, such as CPR, ADHD, and ICU; but there are also far less common acronyms such as ARDS, SLE, and NSTEMI.

If a doctor were speaking to another doctor about the health of a patient, using jargon allows them to communicate a vast amount of information quickly, as they are both aware of exactly what these terms mean.

For example, if one doctor said to another, "The patient presents with acute coronary syndrome, likely due to a non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction, and will require immediate anticoagulation therapy and coronary angiography," the use of this jargon is perfectly appropriate, and expected among medical professionals.

If, however, the doctor were explaining the same situation to a relative of the patient, they would need to use much more common terms to be understood. In this situation, they might restate the jargon-heavy diagnosis by saying, "They are having a heart attack, and we are giving them blood thinner while we try to find the cause."

As a general rule, if you are a professional speaking to other professionals, you should use the jargon appropriate for your profession and situation. This requires that you are well-versed in the jargon of your profession, which may come from formal education, self-study, or on-the-job experience.

If you are a professional speaking to someone outside of your profession, you should avoid jargon and instead use layman's terms, which is to say, simple, common language that you are sure the other person will understand.

Avoiding the use of jargon can be particularly difficult due to an effect called "The Curse of Knowledge," which is when you know something so well, that it would be difficult to imagine other people not knowing it. This effect is more pronounced with people with lots of education, experience, and expertise, leading to situations where experts can sometimes have a hard time explaining things in everyday language, as they forget that not everyone knows what they know.

For example, a car mechanic might explain a problem to a car owner by saying, "You have a malfunctioning fuel injector that is causing a misfire in one of the engine cylinders, likely due to a fault in the fuel delivery system, which is causing the injector to inject the wrong amount of fuel at the wrong time in the stroke cycle."

To the car mechanic, this is a perfectly reasonable and understandable statement but may be unintelligible to the car owner. Said in layman's terms, the mechanic might say, "Gas isn't getting into your engine properly."

Where this situation can become more difficult is when you are speaking to a mixed audience, composed of people who are in your profession - and who therefore expect you to use jargon - as well as people who are outside of your profession - and who would not understand you if your language was jargon-heavy. In cases such as these, it may be worth it to repeat key points twice: first by using jargon so that you can precisely communicate with the other professionals in your field, followed immediately by a layman's explanation, so that the rest of the audience can follow what you are saying.

Imagine you were a software developer giving a presentation at a consumer electronics conference, and were speaking to a room consisting of both software developers, as well as everyday consumers. To help ensure that everyone in the audience has a good chance of understanding you, you might say, "Our product secures API access using Public Key Encryption enabling federated tenants to access remote data repositories via a full duplex non-TCP/IP byte stream. In other words, we allow computers to connect securely without going over the internet."

By essentially saying the same thing twice, you can ensure that you establish and maintain credibility with other professionals who are in your field, while avoiding coming across as arrogant and condescending to the members of the audience who are not in your field.

In addition to jargon, professionals often also use lingo, which are terms and phrases that are similar to slang, idioms, or informal expressions.

For example, business professionals might use jargon such as Key Performance Indicators, Return on Investment, or Vertical Integration; but they also might use lingo such as "What's the elevator pitch," or "Let's table this discussion," or "Can we circle back to this later?"

Typically, jargon tends to be learned through education, but lingo tends to be learned by working with other experienced professionals. The proper use of lingo is one way a professional can gauge the level of experience of another professional, as lingo tends not to be taught in schools or books, but is instead usually learned on the job. Therefore, if someone does not use proper lingo, it might mean that they lack real-world work experience.

As a professional, it is important to use appropriate jargon and lingo when speaking with other professionals in your field. However, as a good communicator, you should also remember to explain things in layman's terms when speaking to people outside of your field, to increase your chances that everyone is able to understand what you are saying, no matter their background.