The threat to the empire of English: It is not Mandarin ... it's bullshit
ft.comI don't think this is a threat. Jargon and bullshit starts overflowing whenever complexity surpasses what the chimp brain can handle.
There are lots of such situations chimps find themselves in these days, where they have no training or instinct on how to react.
Over analyzing these behaviors and the language used when people are out of their depth takes focus away from the fact there are many issues the chimp troupe has no capacity to solve. Just acknowledging and accepting that reality and refocusing the mind on simpler things is what will reduce the bullshit.
As an extreme example take what happens in the military. If you are in a situation surrounded by all kinds of threats and 5 minutes away from possible death what will an untrained mind say? No one sits around analyzing it. Instead there is training to keep the mind focused on the simplest of things.
I agree with the author. But this phenomenon has been happening for a while with corp speak and marketing buzzwords. It's jumped the perimeter and now has metastasized in the political arena in identity politics as well as in actual journalism. It's not just joe and jill college student, but it inhabits the mouths of professionals too now.
If I had a no-paywall URL I'd give it. I love ft.com because it's harder hitting that many US publications in the same space. And here they are really onto to something.
Non-paywall