The Compleat Jargoner: How To Obfuscate the Obvious Without Half Trying

• Author: Betty H. Zisk
• DOI: 10.1177/106591297002300102
• Published date: 01 March 1970
• Date: 01 March 1970
• Subject Matter: Articles

55

THE

COMPLEAT

JARGONER:

HOW

TO

OBFUSCATE

THE

OBVIOUS

WITHOUT

HALF

TRYING

BETTY

H.

ZISK

Boston

University

N

THE

FORMATIVE

YEARS

of

our

Discipline,

eminent

scholars

(e.g.,

t

Socrates)

devoted

themselves

to

the

professional

guidance

of

neophytes.

The

tradition

was

nurtured

by

men

like

Aquinas,

Rousseau

and

the

senior

Mill.

Considerable

effort

was

made

to

inculcate

in

the

young

a

sense

of

the

appropriate

skills

and

behavior

necessary

for

professional

acceptance.

The

advent

of

the

Great

Triumvirate

(Rice,

Bentley

and

Weber)

signaled,

however,

the

diversion

of

our

resourcesinto

other

channels.

With

little

advance

warning,

the

&dquo;spooks&dquo;

were

exorcised;

the

teacher-scholar

replaced

the

inculcation

of

Orthodoxy

with

the

quest

for

reliability.

A

valiant

few

have

tried,

since

that

fateful

era,

to

revitalize

the

pedagological

effort.1

One

seminal

work

in

this

tradition,

Arnold

Rogow’s

&dquo;A

Short

Note

on

U

and

Non-U

in

Political

Science,&dquo;

appeared

in

1960.2

Rogow’s

study,

however,

did

not

attract

the

scholarly

attention

it

deserved.

The

need

-

indeed,

this

major

hiatus

in

our

Discipline

-

might

have

gone

forever

unheeded,

had

it

not

been

for

the

recent

insights

of

Philip

Broughton

of

the

U.S.

Public

Health

Service.

Brough-

ton’s

landmark

study,

&dquo;How

to

Win

at

Wordsmanship:

The

Systematic

Buzz

Phrase

Projector,&dquo;

3

is

addressed

primarily

to

government

employees..

The

core

concept

is

elegant:

the

key

to

successful

exposition

is

the

well-chosen

complex

phrase.

The

means

(utilization

of

thirty

carefully-researched

&dquo;buzz

words&dquo;)

are

relatively

easy

to

master.

The

applicability

of

this

work

to

our

Discipline

is

obvious:

an

analogous

list

of

scholarly

terms

could

assure

the

apprentice

author

of

public

and

scholarly

acclaim.

It

has

been

our

modest

task

to

compile

such

a

list.

We

believe,

however,

that

widespread

replication

of

our

work

is

necessary,

and

an

exploration

of

the

possibility

of

utilizing

computers

for

generating

additional

words

is

now

under

way,

if

adequate

funding

can

be

obtained.4

4

MAGIC

WORDS

FOR

POLITICAL

SCIENTISTS

RULES :

Choose

any

3-digit

number.

(A

table

of

random

numbers

may

be

utilized

if

needed.)

Find

the

corresponding

acceptable

professional

phrase

by

locat-

ing

the

relevant

number

in

each

column.

You

now

need

only

a

few

verbs,

gerun-

dives

and

disclaimers,

and

your

article

is

complete.

Example:

123

=

latent

empiri-

cal

parameters.

1

A

few

have

made

the

effort,

however,

through

example

rather

than

by

injunction.

See

especially

the

contributions

of

Talcott

Parsons

and

Herbert

Marcuse.

2

Arnold

Rogow,

"A

Short

Note

on

U

and

Non-U

in

Political

Science,"

Western

Political

Quarterly,

13

(December

1960),

1064-66.

3

Newsweek,

May

8,

1968,

p.

104.

4 We

would

welcome

communications

from

other

scholars.

We

have

not

been

able

to

take

into

account

the

inter-regional

variations

in

etymological

salience,

nor

have

we

yet

extended

the

effort

to

the

rich

cross-national

context.

With

adequate

foundation

sup-

port,

these

next

steps

may

be

possible

in

the

near

future.