What is jargon?

Jargon is defined as the followin:

1. the language, especially the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group: medical jargon.
2. unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; gibberish.
3. any talk or writing that one does not understand.
4. language that is characterized by uncommon or pretentiousvocabulary and convoluted syntax and is often vague inmeaning.

As the highlighted line says, it is a vocabulary exclusive to a group of people from the same profession. We know three types of jargon: medical language, language in sports and scientific language.

Scientific language: is the vocabulary used by science people. Scientists use language to give authority to their work, but if the words become jargon, they can end up alienating the audience instead of convincing them. Such as the word "Spaghettification". It has nothing to do with Italian cuisine, but refers to what happens if an object falls into a black hole. The classic example is the word 'derma' which simply means skin. Or anything with 'poly', which only means many. The other thing they do is to reduce words to a bunch of initials like MYFB, which look very scientific but probably only mean 'makes you feel better'. This is called Mystification.

Language in sports: it belongs to people involved in sports, and it can be the rules of a sport, specific plays, or just terms about players in a sport. A clear example is the bootleg, a play from american football. The quarterback fakes a handoff to the running back and continues running with the ball opposite from the direction the running back was headed.

Legal language: is the vocabulary used by judges, or people who work in the law's area. For example, atorney, that is defined as a person appointed to act on behalf of another person and sign documents on their behalf, or stamp duty, that is a government tax payable on completion of the purchase of a property over a certain value.



Definition of argot

A specialized vocabulary or set of idioms used by a particular group: thieves' argot.