The Jargon Paradox: A Case for the Words That Make Most Cringe

Oct 3

I’ll admit it: I love industry jargon.

EPCs. PPAs. SCADA. The alphabet soup that only makes sense if you’ve been around long enough to know the code. When I hear it, I feel like I’m part of the team. When I use it, I feel fluent, trusted, on the inside.

And that’s why the usual advice — “cut the jargon” — drives me nuts. It’s one of the most repeated clichés in communications, and it misses the point entirely. Jargon isn’t just language. It’s power. It’s shorthand. It’s membership.

But it’s also risky. The very words that make you sound credible to insiders can make outsiders suspicious, confused, or tuned out. Jargon isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s a lever. Pull it one way and you increase competence. Pull it the other and you build trust. The mistake isn’t using jargon. The mistake is pretending that lever doesn’t exist.

The Power of Private Language

Every industry invents its own dialect. That’s nothing new. Not because people like making things harder, but because entire projects hinge on being able to communicate big ideas quickly and precisely. Complex systems and industries need tight language. “Engineering, Procurement, and Construction” takes nine syllables. “EPC” takes three. Case closed.

But jargon does more than save time. It’s also a password. Say it right and you’re admitted. Stumble and you’re locked out. It’s how insiders find each other. And how outsiders get quietly marked as “not one of us.”

Research backs up what anyone who’s sat through a technical meeting already knows: jargon works like a status badge. Columbia Business School calls it a subtle but powerful cue for competence and authority.

In academia, it’s practically a moat. An analysis of 700,000+ scientific abstracts found readability has been declining for over a century as jargon crept upward—and interdisciplinary impact sank along with it. In other words: jargon makes sure the castle walls stay high.

That’s the paradox. Jargon is both the glue that binds insiders and the fence that keeps everyone else out.

The Cost of Misuse

And here’s where it gets a little ugly. Take jargon outside the circle and it starts backfiring. What feels sharp and efficient to insiders lands like static to everyone else.

And the data is brutal:

In a 650-person study, jargon made content harder to understand even when terms were defined.
That same study found it raised perceived risk and lowered support for the innovation being described.
A consumer credibility experiment showed jargon boosted competence ratings but slashed trust. Smart? Yes. Believable? No.
The SEC’s disclosure study proved that even small jargon swaps—like replacing “12b-1 fees” with simpler language—improved comprehension and increased willingness to invest.
Inside companies, research shows jargon-heavy comms drag down morale. And when leaders and teams don’t even share the same lingo? Performance tanks.

So no—jargon isn’t harmless. It’s not just an “oops, they didn’t get it.” Misapplied, it drains trust, derails buy-in, and can literally cost millions.

Why We Can’t (and Shouldn’t) Quit

So if jargon is so risky, why not cut it out completely? Because the story isn’t that simple—especially if your job is communications.

Communicators live in two worlds at once: the insider world of technical teams, regulators, investors… and the outsider world of press, communities, and broader stakeholders. To be credible in the first, you need to speak the language. To be effective in the second, you need to translate it. The role isn’t to erase jargon. It’s to manage it like a bilingual interpreter.

And the research backs that up.

Take investors. A 2019 study tested jargon-rich proposals across different levels of investor knowledge. For novices, jargon lowered willingness to invest. For those with moderate knowledge, jargon increased willingness—it signaled fluency. Experts went further: rewarding precise jargon but penalizing sloppy overuse. For a communicator, the lesson is clear: you can’t hand the same deck to both groups. You have to adjust the dose.

Or consider the “oversimplification effect.” A 2025 study found that content that felt too simple actually raised suspicion. People assumed something was missing. A measured dose of technical language reassured them that the ideas were serious, not superficial. For communicators, that means stripping everything down to “plain English” isn’t always clarity. Sometimes it’s condescension.

And inside organizations? Jargon is the grease that keeps the gears turning. Engineers don’t say “supervisory control and data acquisition.” They say “SCADA.” Finance doesn’t say “the present value of expected future cash flows.” They say “NPV.” If you’re the communicator in the room, you need to understand that language. Because it’s how credibility is earned internally. Kill the jargon entirely, and you don’t get clarity. You get chaos.

The Trade-Off Nobody Talks About

Okay, fine. Nobody talks about this because no one else has spent years overthinking it like I have. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Jargon is always a trade-off between two competing forces: competence and trust.

Use more jargon → you sound precise, fluent, authoritative. But you risk distance.
Use less jargon → you sound approachable and human. But you risk sounding shallow.

That’s why “cut the jargon” is such lazy advice. It ignores the tension. The smarter move is to own it, and decide where you want to sit on the lever.

Here’s how it plays out in the wild:

Sweet Spot (Competence High + Trust High): Meaning first, jargon second, with just enough scaffolding that everyone keeps up.
Expert Zone (Competence High + Trust Low): Heavy jargon, little translation. Great for insiders, useless for anyone else.
Plain but Thin (Trust High + Competence Low): Friendly and accessible, but risks sounding like “Jargon for Dummies.”
Dead Zone (Trust Low + Competence Low): Jargon-heavy and unclear. Nobody gets it, nobody buys it, and everyone regrets being in the room.

The only place worth aiming for is the Sweet Spot. And you don’t get there by cutting jargon out — you get there by sequencing it, framing it, and calibrating it to the room.

Salt, Not Sugar

So how do effective communicators use jargon well? Think of it like salt.

Just enough and the dish sings.
Too much and you ruin it.
None at all, and it tastes flat.

The problem isn’t the salt. It’s the chef.

And yes, this means being deliberate: introducing concepts in plain English, then layering in the technical label. Calibrating to who’s in the room. Because the acronym that reassures a regulator might alienate a community group. And scaffolding instead of sanding: give people structure to understand, without stripping away the substance. Even something as simple as an infographic can take jargon from alienating to accessible.

The Bigger Point

Jargon isn’t the nuisance it’s made out to be. It’s the raw material of authority.

Used with intent, it accelerates trust, signals competence, and moves decisions faster. Used carelessly, it erodes credibility, creates distance, and slams doors.

So stop telling teams to “cut the jargon.” That advice is lazy. The real challenge — the one I’ve been nerding out on for years across energy, engineering, and finance — is harder and far more valuable: learning how to master it.

Because in the end, it’s not about whether you dropped an acronym. It’s about whether your audience walked away saying: Now I get it.