Reasons Not to Use Jargon in a Business Letter

I have received many professional documents where I have had to either lookup a phrase or wording on the internet or even call the sender and ask what someone was trying to project when they sent the information to me. The problem with this insidious habit is that you really should not leave any of your correspondence to chance or misinterpretation. It really does pay to have an outside party be an objective party in ridding you of this habit. And of course if you have someone else in your same industry look at things; they will not be able to detect any slang, or insider terms that are usually day to day occurrences in your particular dealings. This has happened quite a bit in the medical field, so much so that you usually have to have someone from your doctor/dentists, etc. or insurance offices call and tell you what your correspondence you received even means.

In any industry we tend to use a certain language of our own to cut down on needless repetition or sometimes to keep outsiders guessing as to what we are trying to communicate about. This can usually start as an inside conversation or even a business presentation. The problem comes when we start to use the "jargon" or insider phrases in all of our communication and we may not even be aware of it. It is usually another business person or entity that will bring it to our attention quickly when they haven't the slightest idea of what we are referring to when we email them or we mail them a proposal to sign.

Sometimes it can be language we use only for our certain industries practices and other times it can be order forms and other stationary items that we produce to our own specifications and a person will call and ask about filling out a line or item that just asks ship-shore-note-person or initial stand in. We are the ones who have to fill this in; and yet we forget that these little idiosyncrasies are being looked at and judged by others who will inevitably not know on earth what these could mean. It does become quite comical at times when outsiders have brought it upon themselves to fill in the blanks even though they haven't a clue what was required was no input from them.

If you try to have a conversation with people who do not work in your industry and you keep getting funny looks or they keep asking: "what does that even mean, when you say, pigs are in the dungeon"? You may want to do a once over check on your outgoing correspondence also, because it could just be second hand nature to you, especially if you are a "seasoned" employee!