…those with no knowledge of a subject, then you probably don’t understand the topic well enough yourself. (That’s more or less what Einstein said, but he contradicted himself by also saying, on another occasion, that “If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize”.)
The first statement is a truism I think, one that I’ve sought to address with my posts here. The main aim of that section on my blog is to get away from confusing words and language, and to explain things so the layman can understand them. I’ve even had positive feedback on one of the articles from my father, who said he understood it all – not bad for a silver surfer! (Him, not me!)
Too often too much jargon is used, in all walks of life. You just need to hear the experts being interviewed on the news – how many times do they launch into language which just confuses the rest of us? Using jargon, acronyms and other terms which have special meaning in that subject doesn’t help understanding for the uninitiated.
I’ve spent much of my working life in IT and Security, with a bit of engineering thrown in. I’ve never been able to maintain the technobabble that so many of my peers manage, and have made a point of trying to explain things simply and in plain English. It even helped me in one role where I actually worked as a sort of translator between the really bright, techie guy who couldn’t explain things simply, and his boss who was a technophobe. I can effectively translate from very technical into English, but I’m not too good at going the other way. That’s no bad thing though, in my opinion, as I never like to assume that people understand everything first time round anyway – if I’ve put my thoughts into plain terms in common usage, then there’s less chance of misunderstanding.
I got my inspiration from this piece from http://patriciasplace.me/in-other-words/ – it’s the item for #40. Pop over to the site and have a look around!
Easy Cyber 