Do you ever think about how much jargon you use in your job or hobby or regular life? If Average Joe were to join you in your daily routine, how much would he understand and how much would be lost?
We spent a lot of time discussing this when we did the English revision of T&M. There was so much jargon and Christianese and stuff we thought everyone would just automatically know. Except they don't.
(It's like when Campus Crusade for Christ changed their name to Cru because it made sense because everyone they knew called it that. Except everyone they knew was in Campus Crusade and used Cru as shorthand. Everyone outside the organization knew it as Campus Crusade for Christ. And five years later, we still clarify what we mean when we call them Cru. Not that I'm calling them out or anything. Except I totally am. Sorry, guys.)
Anyway, there are just some words and phrases you use regularly that someone new coming in wouldn't immediately understand. Or they would understand the individual words but not why you used them in that particular combination.
Why am I wittering on about this? Because in the training manual we created to help people know how to produce Train & Multiply, I found this sentence:
Anyway, four groups of Portuguese are now published. I spent Monday splitting booklets 2 and 7, which is labor intensive, but fairly simple in the end. Then I spent Wednesday and Thursday actually outputting PDF files and securing them and making them available to the public.
What was I doing Tuesday, you ask? It was our Fall Work Day on campus, which means we all do stuff we don't normally do to make our property look nice and get us ready for colder weather. I cleaned the MK Center (missionary kids - jargon again!) with Taylor and Sarah. It needed a good scrub, so we did what we could. If I had children, I would be much more likely to allow them to roam the MK Center now than I would have before Tuesday. It just seems to attract creepy crawlies and dust.
And that's about it for the week. Look at me, posting on time and everything. Go team!
We spent a lot of time discussing this when we did the English revision of T&M. There was so much jargon and Christianese and stuff we thought everyone would just automatically know. Except they don't.
(It's like when Campus Crusade for Christ changed their name to Cru because it made sense because everyone they knew called it that. Except everyone they knew was in Campus Crusade and used Cru as shorthand. Everyone outside the organization knew it as Campus Crusade for Christ. And five years later, we still clarify what we mean when we call them Cru. Not that I'm calling them out or anything. Except I totally am. Sorry, guys.)
Anyway, there are just some words and phrases you use regularly that someone new coming in wouldn't immediately understand. Or they would understand the individual words but not why you used them in that particular combination.
Why am I wittering on about this? Because in the training manual we created to help people know how to produce Train & Multiply, I found this sentence:
- Create PDF MA4 files paginated as A4 spreads with spinal binding:
Anyway, four groups of Portuguese are now published. I spent Monday splitting booklets 2 and 7, which is labor intensive, but fairly simple in the end. Then I spent Wednesday and Thursday actually outputting PDF files and securing them and making them available to the public.
What was I doing Tuesday, you ask? It was our Fall Work Day on campus, which means we all do stuff we don't normally do to make our property look nice and get us ready for colder weather. I cleaned the MK Center (missionary kids - jargon again!) with Taylor and Sarah. It needed a good scrub, so we did what we could. If I had children, I would be much more likely to allow them to roam the MK Center now than I would have before Tuesday. It just seems to attract creepy crawlies and dust.
And that's about it for the week. Look at me, posting on time and everything. Go team!
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