Today we at Bride Vs Groom are making a stand. It is time to put an end to a generally unintentional yet abhorrently irritating trait. A trait that is common to all of us who have a particular specialist field but makes life so much more difficult for those of us who don’t share that field. A trait known simply as Tech Talk.
It’s so easy to find yourself talking tech speak without realising it and I for one have been frequently guilty of it in the past. But, whilst it’s perfectly natural to speak to a colleague using acronyms, codes and specialist language that you both understand (and that frequently makes the conversation much faster as a result), using that same jargon with someone outside your field leads only to a look of bafflement best befitting Blackadder’s sidekick Baldrick.
The thing is that tech speak isn’t always even all that technical. Even the concept of “Half Term” frequently bandied about by teachers and parents (whilst at least basically understood thanks to vague memories of school) has meant absolutely nothing to me in terms of an actual space in time for at least the last 10 years. I presume that Autumn half term comes sometime between September and December but if we’re trying to arrange a meeting that’s really quite a vague time frame for me. However it’s when we get into the real full-blown jargon where it really starts to get on my nerves…
Whether it’s photographers talking F numbers to clients who have clearly never used anything more complex than an iPhone, internet companies providing tech support in the form binary code, lighting techs talking 25/50’s to performers or service providers asking you for your IPSC499 B-62 code before they can process your order it’s about time we all started talking to each other in a language we can each understand and stop making the innocent person on the other side feel thick for having no clue what the 01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 you’re talking about.
Just stop it.
I thank you.
