Jargon infuriates me.
It is one of the subjects calculated to stand me on a soapbox at Hyde Park Corner, the dense ignorance of people who simply will not call a spade a spade.
Here in England we educationalists are hamstrung by ill crafted words which define every area of our practice: in the classroom, in our marking, in our own training. We don’t teach maths and English, we teach numeracy and literacy and Big Writing. We teach in Learning Outcomes.
Jargon so often has that Emperor’s New Clothes quality: maybe no-one is clever enough to see through it, or maybe no-one wants to be the adventurer who expresses unease with it. But no-one acknowledges it, so it cannot be there, can it?
One of our biggest banks here on the island, however, has broken the silence.
Its latest revamp of local branches, costing a not unhefty £7 million, has been trumpeted as axing jargon for good.
It sounds extremely inspiring in a blue-sky kind of way. I can just imagine the men in the shiny suits feeling incredibly upbeat about the whole concept, up there on the 71st floor.
The result is that the doors of branches will no longer be labelled: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”
I jest.
No: from now on they will be carefully marked, “Through this door walk the nicest people in the world.”
At the personal banking area customers will be invited to “take the weight off your feet”; those entering will see ‘Hi!” somewhere visually prominent.
Because you are discerning, Reader, I will leave you to surmise what happens as one leaves.
The ATM is an ATM no longer. Barclays will now be referring to it, not as a cash machine, but as a Hole In The Wall.
(I do have a sneaking regard for this last dumbing-down expression, because I have visions of old-style incendiary bank robberies, where half the wall is removed while delighted opportunists like me help themselves.)
Has the pendulum swung the other way? The language of professionalism, intelligence and courtesy must lie somewhere in between these two infuriating extremes, surely?
The BBC was on the case a couple of mornings ago, as I stood ironing like the wind.
They were out in the streets of London asking bypassers what their least favourite jargon was.
Of course, we got ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘I feel out of the loop’. But what annoyed many was ‘think out of the box’.
Some bloke said he just didn’t know what it meant. I snorted derisively. Who doesn’t know what that means? Original thinkers have been doing it for millennia.
And then this morning my son came out with another show stopper. He sat there are the breakfast table and he said, out of the blue: “Have you ever thought that we spend most of our time in boxes?”
A seconds thought confirmed to Maddie and myself that he was right. There we sat in a brick box, complete with a flat roof. And all the other people in our street were doing a similar thing. Boxes are cuboids: cuboids make great rooms and great houses. Quad erat demonstrandum.
I could see Maddie was impressed. “In fact, ” she ventured confidently, “7o per cent of our life is spent in boxes.”
This I was less convinced by. It sounded a bit like one of our Prime Minister, Mr Cameron’s more elaborate fairy tales.
“Maddie, is that true, or have you just made that up?” I queried doubtfully.
My daughter drew herself up to her full height and summoned an imperious authority which convinces me MP could be on her list of possible careers.”No, Mummy, I didn’t make it up: it’s an estimate.”
Wouldn’t it be fascinating to find out just how much of a day, or a week, or a year of our time was spent in boxes?
I put it to you, Reader, that we are creatures of boxes. That we are not happy unless we have one to call home; one to which to retreat; one to belong to.
What are we talking about now, buildings or mindsets?
Both, I think.
Today I remembered a woman I have not recollected for a long time. She belongs to a time before Phil, when I was a young journalist, not sure which boxes I fitted in at all.
Her name was Wendy. She bucked every trend. She looked like a serene little serendipitous English rose, yet she was a Methodist lay preacher. She had a cut glass accent right out of a Merchant Ivory flick, and dressed in Laura Ashley; but she was one of the hottest accountants for one of our top firms. She could elbow the big financial boys out of the way and sail to the front of the class.
Every day she would leave her house in a Berkshire town and head for London via that great and hallowed portal, Waterloo.
We all did this journey, occasionally. And we all passed the beggars.
Uncomfortable people, these. If you allowed eye contact who knew what might happen? They were clearly dishevelled, and some even sported a scruffy little dog. They would ask one for money as one passed. Paltry coins seemed so inadequate, notes better: but they would go and spend it on all the wrong things, we would rationalise to ourselves. No point in meeting their eyes, no point in trying to help.
These guys were, in every sense we have discussed, out of the box. A roof was something they did not experience as a matter of course. And society had decided these people did not share its mindset: and should be excluded.
I would be surprised if Wendy ever thought in a box.
This is what she would do, every morning: she would walk the route through Waterloo, and sit down with the beggar clan.
And then she would send one of them off with a tenner. Go and buy drinks, she would say, and bring them back, and we’ll drink, and we’ll talk.
And that is precisely what they did, every weekday morning. One of them said to her one day: You’re not like the others.
Damn right, she wasn’t.
The men in silver suits: they may have come up with the phrase. But I wonder how many of them have the insight to see what it really means. My son the philosopher says we live much of our lives in boxes. But it took an extraordinary human being, a clever and daring and original thinker, to step outside to greet the others who live there.
Outside the box.
Kate Shrewsday 
Lovely, Kate, I can picture Wendy in my mind, I know a Sally just like her!
You are fortunate indeed, Cindy 🙂
In the school system the administrators are always calling teachers in for meetings “to think out of the box” Then when you meet with your department and “brain storm”(that’s another one) and present some ides or begin to incorporate them you are called in for being insubordinate, circumventing the chain of command, being disloyal, implementing programs that are inconsistent with status quo(I thought that was what “out of the box” meant), being disloyal and disruptive and not a “team player” And who did you think you are creating policies and attempting to foist them on others? You had better learn you place around here or you’ll have no place around here. I have a “box” for them all. A big one. A huge coffin! Many times they would steal ideals and claim authorship and kudos for themselves.
Carl, you cheer me for a completely unrelated reason….which I had better not elaborate. Great leaders have great self esteems and can use those who have ideas which may be inconvenient -but may hit the nail on the head. An organisation is only as good as its leaders, and when the wrong people are in command, farce can ensue.
I am talking hypothetically, of course 🙂
This is such a lovely post, Kate – I love it. Wendy sounds amazing, a true pastor and special human being.
I so appreciate how you approach each blog post – I never quite know where you’ll take me but it’s always somewhere fascinating and new.
I particularly dislike jargon and acronyms, especially when I DKWTM (don’t know what they mean) or they appear WE (without explanation) 🙂
Sunshine xx
LOL for a jargon hater you sure know your stuff, Sunshine! Thanks for those kind words. I feel much the same about your posts, which have a habit of going right to the centre of the matter. Isn’t London lucky to have two such philosophers?
“Little boxes, on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
And they all look just the same. . .”
I’m sending you the MP3 of this old folk song, sing by Pete Seeger, and written by Malvina Reynolds. It was very popular back in the day. I can’t help but think your young children would enjoy it, and also understnd the irony/satire! They always sound to me extraordinary childres, and people I would love to meet! Do they blog? 😀
Fabulous post and so true. I wish I could more than “like it,” and check a box that says “Amazing!”
Paula, that is so kind 🙂 My parents were folk singers, and so I know the Pete Seeger song- but haven’t heard it for ages. It will be such a treat. You are right – Mad and Felix would know it by heart after the second rendering!
Thanks!
They used that song, or a similar one, as the theme song for W.E.E.D.S. set in California:
Ticky tacky people
Driving ticky tacky cars
And living in ticky tacky houses
That all look just the same.
I learned that when I downloaded the song – except I thought it was “Dexter,” not “Weeds.” Whatever – it’s some cable series! Don’t know how I’ve managed not to watch either – my sons love both of those. I suppose that viewing times have not been convenient.
Love this post. Adore Wendy! ~ What a way to not only “think” outside the box, but live outside it as well.
I have a feeling that’s the sign of the real article, Nancy. Those who live what they speak. it’s so easy just to talk the talk. Walking the walk is the vocation of those truly outside the box…
Hi kate. Felix never ceases to amaze me. What perception.
We never sang “Little Boxes”, but I was aware of its existence when I was at College.
The most box-like house I have seen was in the New Forest, a modified railway signal man’s house.
I took a photo and will try and recover a copy to send you. The nearest other house was at least a mile away, and this little house nestled by itself between the hills.
I think the guy who designed it also thought out of the box.
By the way “Jargon” is defined as that which they do in Norfolk to keep fit.
Love Dad
LOL Thanks for that rapier-sharp wit, Dad. Now we’ll await the lynching from all our Norfolk sympathising readers…
I like some boxes, they help us and things fit together in functioning ways. Then it can befun to move the boxes around. Just try sitting in a different seat on day 2 of a course, watch everyone become uncomfortable 😉
😀 I suspect I’d enjoy a course on which you were a student, Sidey….I think you are right: boxes are our natural habitat, and should be celebrated for their protective and organisational qualities. I wonder if every now and then there comes a time when we are called outside? Day 2 sounds as good as any!
I admire Wendy for doing something I don’t think I could do. My mind, perhaps is too boxed in?
I wonder, Pseu, if the good thing about being inside a box is that outside there are many directions. Perhaps we don’t all work outside in the same way, but in the areas at which we excel. I could wax quite lyrical about I how think you fit this model…but as I have said quite enough for today I shall pipe down.
Perhaps its to do with whether we allow our boxes to contain and therefor limit us, or if we use them to give structure to make us more ‘solid’ and grounded and safe people.
I think that just about sums it up!
I will be the first to admit I am uncomfortable outside of a box, figuratively I mean. Physically, outdoors is where I would always rather be if only my job would allow. But I am not very good at moving outside my comfort zone. In fact, one could say, I dislike it immensely and will fight very hard to stay nested inside.
Jargon is a funny thing. I don’t know if we realize how much of it we use on a daily basis. It would be an interesting challenge to go a day, a week, or a year without it. Though perhaps in not as extreme a fashion as your bank. Though “hole in the wall” did make me snicker.
You’re right, Kristine, it’s all about moderation. We belong in our comfort zone: it’s only every now and then that we have to push the boundaries a little; and jargon must be kept at bay but losing it all together would be nigh on impossible….
Glad you liked Hole In The Wall 🙂 I wish it really was one, I’d be rich…
I’d rather be the wall than the hole.
Insightful and entertaining, as always. I couldn’t believe some of the things that bank came up with. It worries me a trifle that those “men in the shiny suits” up there on the 71st floor are also the ones who ultimately control what happens to the money of the everyday people who trustingly deposit their money into a mere “Hole in the Wall”… Somehow, withdrawing from a hole in the wall sounds much more enticing. 😉
We could all be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, Ruth. Although inflation could be a problem…