A news story that was doing the rounds at the tail end of 2007 has recently resurfaced (see Guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk). Ever mindful of the common man (or non-gender specific person), the Local Government Association has declared war on jargon, issuing a list of words to be banned from the Local Authority lexicon.
Fair enough, you may say. Language should help ease the passage to
understanding not block the way like an impenetrable thicket. And
scanning down the list of proscribed terms (or ‘non-words’ to use the
LGA’s own jargon) one can readily sympathise: so out with ‘predictors
of beaconicity’ and shame on ‘coterminosity’! Yah boo sucks to
‘Performance network’ and a big fat raspberry to ‘improvement levers’.
But before the literary lynch mob gets too carried away we should
remember there is a difference between buzz words (empty neologisms)
and technical terms.