Terms can arise as a way of increasing efficiency. A paper

published last year, by Ronald Burt of Bocconi University and Ray

Reagans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looked for how 【M1】__________

jargon emerges naturally among groups. It describes an experiment

which volunteers are assigned to teams. Each team member is separately 【M2】__________

assigned a set of symbols, and one symbol is common to all of them.

Team members must quickly identify this shared symbol by sending

messages to each other that describe what they have given. 【M3】__________

To start with, the teams use quasi-sentences and general words to 【M4】__________

get across what they are seeing (one symbol “looks like its leg is out in a

kicking motion”). Soon enough everyone in the team is calling them 【M5】__________

” kicking man” or “ kicker”. As rounds progress a tacitly agreed

vocabulary allows teams to identify the common symbol more and more

quickly. Different teams alight on different forms of jargon for each

symbol, and the effect is the same: everyone knows what is meant and 【M6】__________

things get done faster.

Jargon can also be desperately unhelpful. The criminal-justice

system is made more intimidated, to victims and suspects alike, by 【M7】__________

confusing terminology. Conversations between doctors and patients go

much better when everyone understands each other. One reason why

management jargon arises so much irritation is that it usually substitutes 【M8】__________

for something that was doing the job perfectly well.

There is an awfully lot of non-useful blather out there, in other 【M9】__________

words. But the fact that jargon emerges spontaneously and repeatedly

suggests it has its merits. In the right circumstances it can help build the 【M10】_________

culture and act as useful shorthand. If you think jargon is worthless, it

may be time to circle back.

【M3】