3 ms·

I don't understand what anyone is saying anymore

9 points by asanwal 15y ago

ryanmarsh 15y ago
The English parlance of American business is utter gobbledygook. The vocabulary within non-profits is even worse. The more I read from Dan Palotta the more endeared I become to him. His book, "Uncharitable" is about the ridiculous mores, both intrinsic and extrinsic, that impair the effectiveness of charities. I was blessed to find him a kindred spirit when I began my own non-profit in 2010. By that time I had developed a tolerance for non-sensical jargon and group-think in business. The non-profit sector, however, is immersed in such a say-nothing, mean-nothing, decide-nothing, do-nothing culture that it's amazing that anything gets accomplished. In fact, were there not a steady influx of starry eyed bleeding hearted young people, it would be a great environment for leaders to commit heinous crimes and find no internal condemnation. Kind of like Jerry Sandusky and The Second Mile.
tzs 15y ago
This reminds me of an anecdote from "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Feynman had been invited to a cross discipline conference on the ethics of equality. While there, he was given a paper to read by a sociologist. Here's Feynman's description of reading that paper (the list he refers to was a list of books they had sent around before the conference): ----------------------------------- There was a sociologist who had written a paper for us all to read—something he had written ahead of time. I started to read the damned thing and my eyes were coming out—I couldn't make head nor tail of it. I figured it was because I hadn’t read any of the books on that list. I had this uneasy feeling of, "I'm not adequate," until finally I said to myself, "I'm going to stop, and read one sentence slowly so I can figure out what the hell it means." So I stopped at random and read the next sentence very carefully. I can't remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: "The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels." I went back and forth over it and translated. You know what it means? "People read." Then I went over the next sentence. And I realized that I could translate that one, also. Then it became a kind of empty business. "Sometimes people read. Sometimes people listen to the radio." And so on. But written in such a fancy way that I couldn't understand it at first. And when I finally deciphered it, there was nothing to it.
garethsprice 15y ago
When I was younger I thought long words and jargon were a sign of intelligence. George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English language", changed overnight how I think when I'm writing: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Learning to filter jargon and communicate it in plain English is probably the most valuable skill I've acquired in my career.
auxbuss 15y ago
Bringing it closer to home, and admirably demonstrating my pedantry, every other thread on HN contains, to me, nonsensical extensions to words, such as: "build out" for build, "abstract away" for abstract, and so on, there are hundreds of these "why use one good word when two will mess it up real good".

9 points by asanwal 15y ago

The English parlance of American business is utter gobbledygook. The vocabulary within non-profits is even worse. The more I read from Dan Palotta the more endeared I become to him. His book, "Uncharitable" is about the ridiculous mores, both intrinsic and extrinsic, that impair the effectiveness of charities. I was blessed to find him a kindred spirit when I began my own non-profit in 2010. By that time I had developed a tolerance for non-sensical jargon and group-think in business. The non-profit sector, however, is immersed in such a say-nothing, mean-nothing, decide-nothing, do-nothing culture that it's amazing that anything gets accomplished. In fact, were there not a steady influx of starry eyed bleeding hearted young people, it would be a great environment for leaders to commit heinous crimes and find no internal condemnation. Kind of like Jerry Sandusky and The Second Mile.

tzs 15y ago

This reminds me of an anecdote from "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Feynman had been invited to a cross discipline conference on the ethics of equality. While there, he was given a paper to read by a sociologist. Here's Feynman's description of reading that paper (the list he refers to was a list of books they had sent around before the conference): ----------------------------------- There was a sociologist who had written a paper for us all to read—something he had written ahead of time. I started to read the damned thing and my eyes were coming out—I couldn't make head nor tail of it. I figured it was because I hadn’t read any of the books on that list. I had this uneasy feeling of, "I'm not adequate," until finally I said to myself, "I'm going to stop, and read one sentence slowly so I can figure out what the hell it means." So I stopped at random and read the next sentence very carefully. I can't remember it precisely, but it was very close to this: "The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels." I went back and forth over it and translated. You know what it means? "People read." Then I went over the next sentence. And I realized that I could translate that one, also. Then it became a kind of empty business. "Sometimes people read. Sometimes people listen to the radio." And so on. But written in such a fancy way that I couldn't understand it at first. And when I finally deciphered it, there was nothing to it.

garethsprice 15y ago

When I was younger I thought long words and jargon were a sign of intelligence. George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English language", changed overnight how I think when I'm writing: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Learning to filter jargon and communicate it in plain English is probably the most valuable skill I've acquired in my career.

auxbuss 15y ago

Bringing it closer to home, and admirably demonstrating my pedantry, every other thread on HN contains, to me, nonsensical extensions to words, such as: "build out" for build, "abstract away" for abstract, and so on, there are hundreds of these "why use one good word when two will mess it up real good".