D&D General Jargon Revisited: Why Jargon is Often Bad for Discussing RPGs

[FrogReaver]

I just have to point out that's a property of the sciences, not jargon use in general. There's plenty of jargon in the arts and there's no real way to "test" those. They're just about description and binning.

Even in the arts that descriptive binning can be tested. All you do is take an example and see if the descriptive binning places that example in the bin you would intuit. The better the descriptive binning the more it’s going to mesh with most peoples intuitions in most cases.

For example: If you created a descriptive binning that was wholly unintuitive I’d expect it to get rejected outright.

 

[Aldarc]

Whether you can control it or not, it still has the semantic loading and still will tend to produce that result. That's just going to be the reality with anything that can be described as "presence" or "lack", and is appended to a term that is not strongly neutral, and the word "agency" isn't.

Basically the result here was entirely predictable.

Please take a little time to step back from your desire to moralize at me and listen to me. I beg you. Because I fed like you are defending gatekeepers.

I’m not talking about things in terms of lack or presence. I’m not trying to belittle other games. I’m not trying to elevate my own. I’m just talking about player agency in terms of what players can do when playing different games. Some other definitions of agency are excluding other things that I can do when playing a game.

 

[Aldarc]

Nevermind.

 

[payn]

Are you kidding? Videogame jargon is incredibly contentious!

Not commenting directly to you, or your current conversation, but I wanted to point something out. Jargon is contentious in everything.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Not commenting directly to you, or your current conversation, but I wanted to point something out. Jargon is contentious in everything.

....well, I don't think that it's particularly contentious in professional areas (such as law or medicine). But that's because they are usually technical terms used to describe something- not terms of (implicit or explicit) criticism.

 

[Aldarc]

Not commenting directly to you, or your current conversation, but I wanted to point something out. Jargon is contentious in everything.

in my experience, people rarely call their own terms that they use “jargon” but are quick to call the terms of others “jargon” when they want to accuse them of something.

 

[payn]

....well, I don't think that it's particularly contentious in professional areas (such as law or medicine). But that's because they are usually technical terms used to describe something- not terms of (implicit or explicit) criticism.

Oh man, those especially. For every jargon "X" is great here is a research paper saying so, there is another that says it sucks. While precedence is a strong force in law, its constantly challenged.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Oh man, those especially. For every jargon "X" is great here is a research paper saying so, there is another that says it sucks. While precedence is a strong force in law, its constantly challenged.

...not to go off topic, but that's not jargon. A case might be precedent (jargon) or not, might require vertical or horizontal stare decisis (jargon), but whether the case is controversial doesn't mean the jargon is.

Jargon is "motion to dismiss." Or "mortgagee." Or "appellant." Or "de novo" as opposed to, say, "arbitrary and capricious." Or saying "McDonnell Douglas" to talk about a burden-shifting framework.

The jargon, the actual terms used, isn't contentious at all. ....It's everything else that gets argued about.

 

[payn]

in my experience, people rarely call their own terms that they use “jargon” but are quick to call the terms of others “jargon” when they want to accuse them of something.

There is plenty of that going around in everything. I think some subjects seem more serious and congenial like law and medicine, but they still bicker over the terms. Folks naturally want to reinforce their ideas, few are able to restrain their bias IME.

 

[payn]

...not to go off topic, but that's not jargon. A case might be precedent (jargon) or not, might require vertical or horizontal stare decisis (jargon), but whether the case is controversial doesn't mean the jargon is.

Jargon is "motion to dismiss." Or "mortgagee." Or "appellant." Or "de novo" as opposed to, say, "arbitrary and capricious." Or saying "McDonnell Douglas" to talk about a burden-shifting framework.

The jargon, the actual terms used, isn't contentious at all. ....It's everything else that gets argued about.

Precedent is often reduced to a line of jargon. Qualified Immunity is a popular one.