Principia Discordia > Horrorology

Wrecked Time in Fat City, part I

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel:

--- Quote from: Pergamos on April 28, 2013, 08:58:37 am ---
--- Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on April 26, 2013, 11:38:55 pm ---As far as I understand it, no. Slang is shorthand, and a tribal marker.

Jargon is a willful attempt to send bad signal, masked by obfuscation.

--- End quote ---

I  think your definition of slang is closer to what I hear Jargon being defined as.  Jargon is not an attempt to deceive, it is an attempt to exclude, and it is different from contradictory signal.  "Your call is important to us" isn't Jargon, it's just bullshit.

--- End quote ---

Slang has a way of entering the common lexicon over time. Jargon doesn't. Jargon, as Roger is defining it, will never enter the common lexicon because it has a low communication value.

Nephew Twiddleton:
Jargon also serves the purpose of making it seem like you know what you're talking about even when you don't.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel:

--- Quote from: Queef Erisson on April 29, 2013, 08:47:46 pm ---Jargon also serves the purpose of making it seem like you know what you're talking about even when you don't.

--- End quote ---

ESPECIALLY this!

Mesozoic Mister Nigel:
But only when you're talking to people who don't know what you're talking about.

Cainad (dec.):
I think this can be connected to what Harry G. Frankfurt was talking about in his essay, "On Bullshit" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit )


--- Quote ---Bullshit either can be true or can be false; hence, the bullshitter is a man or a woman whose principal aim — when uttering or publishing bullshit — is to impress the listener and the reader with words that communicate an impression that something is being or has been done, words that are neither true nor false, and so obscure the facts of the matter being discussed; i.e. “the bullshitter is faking things, but that does not necessarily mean he gets them wrong.”
--- End quote ---

Someone who is telling a lie, by contrast, knows the truth and is explicitly trying to convince the reader/listener of something untrue.

For a bullshitter, it isn't particularly important if their audience believes a truth or falsehood, so long as the bullshitter's goal is served. In the case of jargon, the listener ends up with neither the truth nor a falsehood, because nothing was actually communicated.

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