The reassuring jargon

Technical terms used without definition, often in English. They do not sharpen the point: they dress it up.

FamilyCredibility
Position in the postThe body of the text
What it is afterPerceived competence
Misleading?Often
In one sentence

If a term can neither be defined nor replaced by a plain word, it explains nothing: it impresses.

01 · If you use it

What holds, and what does not

The technique itself is neutral. What changes is the gap between what the line promises and what the post delivers.

Defensible

Define each technical term at its first appearance, or replace it with the everyday word.

Follow each concept with a concrete example that shows what it changes.

Reserve specialized vocabulary for posts addressed to specialists.

To avoid

Do not use a term you could not define if asked in the comments.

Do not pile up technical qualifiers in place of a description of what you do.

Do not christen "method" a list of tips that only the acronym distinguishes.

02 · How to recognise it

Three markers

01

The terms are never defined

No technical word is followed by a definition, a translation or an example. The text assumes comprehension, or bets on its absence.

02

The buzzword carries the authority

Mindset, framework, scaling, data-driven: the borrowed term gives the point the air of an imported method. The same word in plain language would sound ordinary.

03

The sentence survives without them

Remove the technical terms: the sentence says the same thing, less impressively. That is the sign they were decoration.

03 · Annotated examples

The same mechanism, three forms

DRESSED-UP METHOD

« My approach is systemic, holistic and data-driven. »

Three qualifiers, zero operations: we still do not know what the author concretely does for a client. The terms stand in for a description.

What concrete action does each term cover?
BUZZWORD SCREEN

« We implemented a growth framework aligned with your OKRs. »

The jargon gives the words the air of an imported method. Translated into plain language, they become ordinary again: a plan, some goals.

Does the sentence still say anything once put in plain words?
HOUSE CONCEPT

« I use the C.L.A.R.I.T.Y. method, which I developed over ten years in the field. »

The acronym turns common advice into intellectual property. The name brings the method into existence before its content.

What does the method contain, step by step?
04 · Why it works

The mechanism

In a scrolling feed, nobody stops to ask for a definition. The obscure term benefits from a reading reflex: faced with a word they do not understand, the reader more readily concludes their own ignorance than the author's imprecision.

Specialized vocabulary signals membership in a milieu: using it is claiming the competence without having to demonstrate it. And the vague term has one decisive advantage over the precise one: it cannot be contradicted. You cannot refute a "systemic approach".

The terms circulate from post to post: each pickup normalizes them and lends them credibility at once. They end up forming the default language of a sector, which everyone speaks because everyone speaks it, and which nobody thinks to define anymore.

05 · What to check

Four questions

Technical terms used without definition.

Can each term be defined?

Replace each technical word with its definition. If the sentence becomes empty or absurd, the term was carrying nothing.

Is the term followed by an example?

An author who has mastered a concept illustrates it spontaneously with a concrete case. A term never made concrete serves as decor.

Does the intended reader understand these words?

Between specialists, technical vocabulary is a shorthand. Addressed to laypeople without translation, it does not inform: it ranks.

Would the plain version say less?

Rewrite the sentence in everyday words. If it says the same thing, the term added only its prestige. If it says less, it was justified.

Use the word your client would use.

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