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Bartleby
巴托比专栏
In praise of jargon
赞美行话
Acronyms and slang can help build cultures and improve efficiency.
缩写和俚语可以帮助建立文化和提高效率。
An idea to run up the flagpole: jargon gets an overly bad press.
有一个说法不知道大家是否同意：对行话的报道过于负面。
Not the kind of jargon that involves using the words “flagpole” and “run up”, but the kind that binds teams together.
不是那种使用“旗杆”和“升起”等词的行话，而是将团队凝聚在一起的行话。
The kind that is exemplified by the term “nub”.
比如以nub这个词为例。
In the very unlikely event that you find yourself on board a submarine but are not a member of the crew, you will be a nub.
假设一种不太可能的情况，你发现自己在潜水艇上，但又不是船员中的一员，这样的话你就是一个nub。
A nub is a “non-useful body”—someone who uses up oxygen, food and space and offers nothing in return.
nub是“没有用处的身体”--耗费氧气、食物和空间，却不带来任何回报的人。
A nub is someone who is not on the team, and the opacity of jargon gives the word extra bite.
这个词指的是团队之外的人，因为这个词的意思不是谁都能懂，所以这个词显得更加意味深长。
Only insiders know what it means.
只有内部人士知道它是什么意思。
Useful crew members have their own names.
有用的船员都有自己的名字。
This cast of characters includes nukes, coners, shower techs and other bubbleheads whose jobs may include looking after Sherwood Forest.
大家的角色包括核武器（负责潜水艇引擎室的人）、圆锥（主体船员）、声呐技术员和其他人，他们的工作可能包括负责照管潜水艇的导弹。
(If you need to ask, you are a nub.)
（如果你还需要问是什么意思，那么你就是个nub。）
Although submarines are unusual environments, the use of jargon to signify specific practices, objects and people is prevalent in workplaces everywhere.
虽然潜水艇是很不寻常的环境，但使用行话来表示特定的做法、物品和人，这在各种工作场所都很普遍。
Some of this jargon is not much more than slang.
其中一些行话只不过是俚语。
The “blue goose” is what White House staffers call the travelling presidential lectern.
“蓝鹅”是白宫工作人员所说的总统移动演讲台。
The “grid” is the nickname for the diary of planned policy announcements by the British government.
“网格”是英国政府记录那些计划要宣布的政策的日志。
Doctors have a private vocabulary for patients when they are out of earshot.
在病人听不到的地方，医生有专门的词汇来指代各种病人。
“Status dramaticus” is how some medics diagnose people who have not much wrong with them but behave as though death is nigh; “ash cash” is the fee that British doctors pocket for signing cremation forms.
“病情抓马人”指的是一些人经医生诊断没有太大毛病，但表现得像是快要死了一样；“灰银子”指的是英国医生在火葬表上签字时收取的费用。
Such shared language is not exactly high-minded but it does serve a useful purpose—creating a sense of tribe and of belonging.
这种共同的语言没有什么很高雅的地方，但它确实有一种用途：创造一种部落感和归属感。
Each company generates its own particular lexicon.
每家公司都会生成自己的特殊词汇。
The GE logo is also known as “the meatball” by people inside the industrial firm.
通用电气的标志也被这家工业企业内部的人称为“肉丸”。
At Stripe, a digital-payments company, hiring-committee meetings are called “tropes”.
在数字支付公司Stripe，招聘委员会的会议被称为“比喻会议”。
A “fourth leader” is what journalists at The Economist call lighthearted opinion articles.
《经济学人》的记者们把内容轻松的评论性文章成为“第四篇社论”。
No one knows why; it is usually the fifth of five editorials.
没有人知道为什么，其实这种社论通常是五篇社论中的第五篇。
But the knowing is enough. The code confers membership.
但知道是什么意思就够了。这种密码会赋予你成员资格。
Jargon can spread for practical reasons as well as cultural ones.
行话的流行既有文化原因，也有实际原因。
The airline industry has the usual slang, from “deadheads” (off-duty crew on a commercial flight) to “George” (a common nickname for the autopilot).
航空业有常见的俚语，从“免费乘客”(非工作状态下搭乘商业航班客机的机组人员)到“乔治”(自动驾驶仪的常见昵称)。
But codifying knowledge in agreed ways can be a serious business.
但以协商一致的方式给信息编码也是一件很严肃的事。
Well over 1,000 passengers and crew lost their lives between 1976 and 2000 in accidents where misunderstandings over language were found to have played a role.
1976年至2000年间，1000多名乘客和机组人员在事故中丧生，事后发现对语言的误解在其中发挥了一定作用。
Pilots use highly standardised and scripted terminology in order to reduce the scope for potentially fatal errors.
飞行员使用高度标准化和脚本化的术语，以减少发生潜在致命错误的可能性。
Terms can arise as a way of increasing efficiency.
术语可以作为提高效率的一种方式出现。
A paper published last year, by Ronald Burt of Bocconi University and Ray Reagans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looked at how jargon emerges naturally among groups.
博科尼大学的罗纳德·伯特和麻省理工学院的雷·里根去年发表了一篇论文，研究了行话是如何在群体中自然出现的。
It describes an experiment in which volunteers are assigned to teams.
论文中描述了一个实验，在实验中志愿者被分配到不同团队。
Each team member is separately assigned a set of symbols, and one symbol is common to all of them.
每个团队成员都被分配了各自的一组符号，并且所有人都有一个符号是一样的。
Team members must quickly identify this shared symbol by sending messages to each other that describe what they have been given.
团队成员必须通过相互描述他们有什么样的符号，来快速识别出这个共同的符号。
To start with, the teams use quasi-sentences and generic words to get across what they are seeing (one symbol “looks like its leg is out in a kicking motion”).
最开始，他们用不完整的句子和通用的词来让其他人理解他们看到了什么(一个符号“看起来像是它的腿伸出来，是一个踢的动作”)。
Soon enough everyone in the team is calling it “kicking man” or “kicker”.
很快，团队中的每个人都把这个符号称为“踢腿的人”或“踢腿者”。
As rounds progress a tacitly agreed vocabulary allows teams to identify the common symbol more and more quickly.
随着活动一轮轮地推进，默认有某种意思的词汇使团队能够越来越快地识别那个共同的符号。
Different teams alight on different forms of jargon for each symbol, but the effect is the same: everyone knows what is meant and things get done faster.
不同的团队对每个符号随机想出了不同的行话，但效果是相同的：每个人都知道别人是什么意思，事情就能做得更快。
Jargon can be desperately unhelpful.
行话也可能不可救药地没任何用处。
The criminal-justice system is made more intimidating, to victims and suspects alike, by confusing terminology.
由于术语混乱，受害者和嫌疑人都对刑事司法系统感到更加望而生畏。
Conversations between doctors and patients go much better when everyone understands each other.
当每个人都相互理解的时候，医生和病人之间的对话会更顺利。
One reason why management jargon arouses so much irritation is because it usually substitutes for something that was doing the job perfectly well.
管理方面的行话之所以引起如此多的愤怒，一个原因是这些行话替换了那些原本意思表达很清楚的词语。
No one hears the words “Let’s talk about it later” and feels baffled.
没有人听到“我们以后再谈”这句话时会感到莫名其妙。
Plenty of people do hear the phrase “Let’s put a pin in it” and wish they had a sharp object to hand.
但很多人确实在听到“我们就在这里插根大头针吧”这句话时，会真的希望自己手头上有一件锋利的东西。
There is an awful lot of non-useful blather out there, in other words.
换句话说，有很多无用的废话。
But the fact that jargon emerges spontaneously and repeatedly suggests it has its merits.
但行话自发出现且反复出现的事实表明，行话有其优点。
In the right circumstances it can help build a culture and act as a useful shorthand.
在适当的情况下，行话可以帮助建立一种文化，并充当一种有用的简称。
If you think all jargon is worthless, it may be time to circle back.
如果你认为所有行话都一文不值，那么也许是时候回头再看看了。
