TEd said (Okay, so it doesn't rhyme, but I don't care): A part of it is the fact that use of arcane language makes it more difficult for people to fake their way into the profession, I'm certain.

As I just noted in another thread in Information and Announcements, I'm an economist by training. One of the first things you're taught (well, almost) is that the object of every economic grouping is to ensure that sufficient barriers are put up to entry to discourage the idea of a homogenous product. Medicine, Law, Economics, Accountancy and virtually every other profession uses language as part of that barrier.

You will have noted that most of them try to get themselves set up with some form of Government-enforced registration system (which they themselves control), which represents, of course, another barrier to entry. This is a good thing in many cases, naturally, but it serves to reinforce my point.

What seems a muddy approach to the professional language to outsiders is actually, in many cases, a finely-tuned precision of meaning within the community of such professionals.

For instance, a "float" means a buoyant object which holds a line up to a fisherman, operating cash to a businessman and a metal implement for levelling concrete to a builder.

Ah, well. End of sermon!


The idiot also known as Capfka ...