The uses of chemical jargon

We're going to hook this thing up to your NMR -- do you mind?
Photo credit: Techeblog.com

Excimer's posting of a "turboencabulator" video by Chrysler was pretty priceless. For a taste, see below:

The line-up consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzul vanes so fitted to the ambaphascient lunar wain shaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-odeltoid type placed in panendurmic semi-bulloid slots of the stator. Every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremmy pipe to the differential girdle spring on the up-end of the grammeters. (script from Wikipedia)

It's always interesting to me how jargon gets used. I've found that it's used as a credential; if I meet someone and they talk like a chemist (e.g. they use "diastereotopic" or "phthalate" correctly and without fumbling the pronunciation), I'm more likely to believe what they say. Jargon cannot take the place of an education, but it can be used as a signaling device.

Sometimes, it's used to obfuscate. If you tell your sales guy that "we're experiencing a variety of polymorphs in our recrystallization experiments", it sounds a lot better than "our purification isn't working." While I think a smart customer and an intelligent salesperson will know what you're doing, the first statement provides a level of specificity that suggests "hey, these people know what's going wrong and therefore, they're more likely to fix the problem." All of this, of course, assumes that you actually have multiple polymorphs in your recrystallization -- if you actually don't and you say that, well, you're lying.

I think the right way to use jargon as a tool for exactness; it can shorten conversations ("NMR" and "TLC" are really helpful abbreviations) and can help you say exactly what you want to say, when you want to say it. Like any tool, there's a time and a place for each use, even when it's connected by a non-reversible tremmy pipe.