Jargon

or argot, cant, colloquialism, idiom, lexicon, lingo, parlance, patois, patter, shoptalk, vernacular, etc. I find it ironic that there are some many words for, "The language, esp. the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group."

What got me thinking on this? Well in teaching economics I introduce many new terms that, if you think about it, could be understood almost as well using regular old language. For instance:

price elasticity: price sensitivity would work just as well.
externality: a side effect.
deadweight loss: uncaptured gain/benefit in a market.
excess burden: deadweight loss (yes we have a specialized term for a specialized term).
demand deposit: checking account.
monotonicity: more is better.
specie: coins.
utility: happiness/satisfaction.

Those are just ones I can think of off the top of my head. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting a move toward Orwellian newspeak where we pare language down to the bare minimum number of words. Lord knows I absolutely love words (as proof of that, sesquipedalian is my favorite word I've learned recently), I just sometimes wonder if we couldn't make basic concepts easier for people to learn by sticking with simple, clear language up front?

For instance, here's my current textbook's definition of money:

The set of assets in an economy that people regularly use in economic transactions or exchanges.

Here's the definition I give my students (I tell them they will NEVER see my definition in a textbook):

Stuff we use to pay for stuff.

Okay so now I've ranted about fluffy language and I realize I have to take it all back. See the number one complaint about my exams each semester, other than that they deal with economics of all things, is that the way I word the questions is tricky. I agree, to a degree. I hate to ask simple definition-type questions. I try to describe hypothetical scenarios in which the students have to understand and maybe even apply the concept rather than just regurgitate a memorized definition. Now I try not to use overly complicated words, but that's in the eye of the reader. I sometimes am amazed and disappointed by the poor vocabularies of my students. Hence, I guess I should not complain about potential complications arising from too many synonyms.

Anyway, just something I was thinking about today. Any of y'all have any favorite "pet phrases" associated with your line of work? If you've been to grad school in any field, I'm quite sure you could run a pen dry on this topic.