Thursday, January 29, 2009

Simon Titley: Against jargon

My Liberator colleague Simon Titley has an article on Lib Dem Voice anathematising jargon, buzzwords and cliches of all kinds.

One of those he identifies is:

• Young people’s jargon – Like, whatever.
There is a certain irritating sort of journalist - perhaps unfairly, Zoe Williams of the Guardian is the first name that springs to mind - who affects an adolescent offhandedness in his of her writing. They do not just use "like" and "whatever": words like "stuff" and "squillions" feature prominently too.

Having been to a conference on social media for work earlier this week, I am now in possession of the perfect phrase to describe these embarrassing attempts to get down with the kids.

It is "Dad at the disco" or "Dad on the dance floor".

I intend to use it frequently - until it becomes a piece of jargon, of course.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Disco vicar" is a similar phrase, and sufficiently widely used I'd be tempted to file it as "jargon" already. Though in this case I think "good jargon" (if there is such a thing) because it's a short phrase that conjurers up a strong and evocative visual image.