atw: Re: Is it just me ?[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
- From: Tom Birts <tombirts@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 05:18:25 +0000
Hi Peter,
Pedant alert!
I can think of a couple of potential side-effects from a prescription for "one
table 4 times a day".
At least it's 'by mouth' though, eh?
Sorry my first post here is, well, this. I will try to be more constructive
next time.
Tom
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Is it just me ?[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
From: Peter.Martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 13:12:00 +1100
Ros:
What would you accept as evidence ?
I'd have thought that historically,
there's fairly extensive support for the proposition that specialised language
and jargon can be used as a power tool...
For example, Latinate phrases now still
embodied for example, in doctor's prescription language.
"I tab po qid pc & hs"
Is there really any good reason why
a prescription can't actually say "one table by mouth 4 times a day
after meals and at bed time" ? After all, the English version
appears on the packet or bottle label when you get it.
In some cases, it seems hard to understand
why else the language might be used other than to maintain an aura of
professional
secrecy around specialised knowledge.
Peter M
From:
Ros Byrne <ros.byrne@xxxxxxx>
To:
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date:
03/12/2012 12:51 PM
Subject:
atw: Re: Is
it just me ?[SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]
Sent by:
austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mmm…
Interesting claim (about the reasons people use jargon).
Alas, no evidence provided - yet!
Ros
__
On 03/12/2012, at 11:14 AM, Allan Charlton wrote:
Peter said:
This suggests to me that STE is clearly
not simplified English at all. Just another language.
For aircraft engineers.
I agree. It's just a way of ensuring that jargon becomes
entrenched and can be used to set aircraft engineers apart, just as legal
language sets lawyers apart, and medical language is used to set us below
the medical professions, and so on through all the professions and the
trades. I call it professional arrogance, or I would if it wasn't jargon.
"I know what this term means so I am clearly your superior"
Good grief. Has it really come to this? I'm afraid that it might have.
What of other languages? Do they do it too?
Allan
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