Tuesday, February 8, 2011

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.

5 comments:

  1. Chemists - and I'm sure by extension other scientists - turn sensible proper nouns into verbs (a la "Google it")

    "So I Finkelsteined my product, columned it, and then NMR'd it....turns out I should have E2'd and then Diels-Aldered it instead."

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  2. But I also see jargon as necessary at most times. Some ideas are not captured well without it. A good example is "good laboratory practices". If you work for a medical device company, that phrase has a very clear, well defined meaning that the FDA is only too happy to clarify to you as they fine your company and order a recall. But to anyone else, it is a "whatever" idea. (Ask a newly minted chemist in a job interview if they follow "good laboratory practices" and they will say "of course" not knowing what they just stepped into.)

    "Six sigma" and most jargon is a counter example - you either know what it means or you don't and you will never assume that you do if you don't. (You might try and fake it, but that is a totally different story.)

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  3. I am unsure if this is related to scientific jargon. But I would be proud to have a disciplinary action record just like this one

    http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t319/Kristian_Maria/Listopad%202010/308469_oneanddone.jpg

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  4. @John: I agree. Perhaps the issue is who the conversants (is that a word?) are and if the jargon has coded meaning. For example, "accountability" seems to mean to management types that "somebody has to be responsible for this mess" and it means "we're gonna find a reason to fire one of you" to grunt-level folks.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20