ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

I didn’t mention it, but I’m back in school again due to a somewhat heated disagreement I had with the Kansas Board of Accountancy earlier this year, regarding what specific coursework completion is necessary before one may apply to sit for the CPA exam. I rather felt they were a bit unreasonable about it, but I think I’d prefer not to go into it right now lest my fiery tears of rage contribute any further to global warming than they already have.

So anyway, yesterday I started English 101. Literally. This is a class I never took the first time around, since I took the AP version of it in high school. Not that the Kansas Board of Accountancy considers that a sufficient “demonstration of competence”, but sure! Whatever! It’s looking so far like the high school version was actually the more challenging of the two. The upside is that the teacher loves Sherlock Holmes the same way I do, which is to say, in every way. The downside is that the class is English 101, not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Greatest Hits.

This point was driven home to me when I did the reading assignment last night, the excerpt from which is taken from page 19 of “A Pocket Style Manual, 4th edition” by Diana Hacker. All I can say is, Strunk and White would not pull this type of shit.

Jargon is specialized language used among members of a trade, profession, or group. Use jargon only when readers will be familiar with it; even then, use it only when plain English will not do as well.

Broadly defined, jargon includes puffed-up language designed more to impress readers than to inform them. Common examples . . . are given in the following list, with plain English translations in parentheses.

I was reasonably on board with this concept, since it’s true that highly specialized language can obfuscate unnecessarily depending on the audience. For example, your average layperson who is not addicted to “House, M.D.” has no particular need to know what the hell something like “pleural effusion” means. But then I looked at the list of examples. I can’t think of a single person I know over age 12 who doesn’t know all these allegedly difficult words. I mean, input? Components? Impact? EXIT???!!!

commence (begin)
components (parts)
endeavor (try)
exit (leave)
facilitate (help)
factor (consideration, cause)
finalize (finish)
impact (affect)
indicator (sign)
input (advice)
optimal (best)
parameters (boundaries)
prior to (before)
prioritize (set priorities)
utilize (use)
viable (workable)

“Hey, the building is on fire! What are we supposed to do? Doesn’t it have something to do with that thing over there?”

“The thing with the red sign lit up above that opening in the wall that people can go in and out of?”

“Yeah, what is that exactly? What is it called when we go through it?”

“Hell if I know. God, I wish I’d graduated from the 1st grade so I would know this!”

“Me too. Well, let’s leave.”