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You want some Jargon with that??

By Dan Furman

Recently, I was dropped by a client shortly after he hired me. The issue was mainly writing style and words. In a nutshell, he didn't agree with my interpretation of what he wanted to say.

While we parted amicably, I found myself wondering how anyone could read my site and then think I'd be receptive to taking a simple concept like:

"we propose to upgrade your website to make it more attractive to today's web consumers"

and turn it into

" current market trends indicate a major reconfiguring of the competitive online brand is essential to ongoing consumer acquisition efforts"

Ugh.

To be honest, I tried. I don't turn away paying customers, but I should have known this was doomed from the start. My job was to "tune up" a wordy, jargon-filled proposal. Except my basic instructions were to keep all of the wordiness and all of the jargon. Which leaves me little room to work.

So we clashed.

My former client felt that since "very intelligent Harvard Graduates" would read his proposal, we had to be wordy. In short, he felt they wouldn't accept a proposal that basically... well... said exactly what my client proposed. As if they don't teach you to say what you mean at Harvard? I doubt that.

Regardless, my ex-client felt compelled to say things like "full overarching branding scheme", and then sort of chuckled when I asked exactly what that meant in the real world.

Hey, maybe he should have chuckled. Maybe it's me. While I quite enjoy writing professional documents, I'm not cut out to write overly-wordy jargon that puts 99% of us to sleep. I hope my ex-client finds the right writer for him, since it clearly isn't me.

Because all things being equal, I'd rather my (and your) words get read - all the way to the bottom of the page.

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