Communication Problems

Yang my fronger, jis tickley namma on the hilly snickle toggle.

Have any clue what that means?

No?

Good, me neither, which is why I wonder why people from specific walks of life always feel the need to convey messages to you in their own little dialect rather than using actual words that are common not just to a certain in-group, or profession, but to all people who technically speak the same language as they do.

When notorious 'bad man' Dave Courtney was up in court once (of many times), his language was, as we have to say these days 'inappropriate', the quick witted man in the dock however found it quite 'appropriate' in the light that lawyers use their own bullshit language in court so why shouldn't he? And it's a fair point well made. You will find that people of certain professions (e.g. doctors, lawyers, insurance bods) will always talk to you as if you're one of them, and then, when you've been singled out as not understanding a word of their gobbledygook, they'll make you feel marginalised, and stupid.
This possibly extends from a deeply in-built anthropological need to be within an in community or group...Unfortunately it is usually the case that it is a group of wankers.

What is possibly worse, is when those specific in-words become commonplace amongst the populace. Is there anything worse than your grandad rocking in his chair, sucking a werthers original and bemoaning how "sodding chavs" are ruining society and how they have spent the weekend "getting pics from Aunty Linda on MyFace or MyBook" and downloading them to their "EePod".
It isn't just pop culture where this happens, and this next example involves the slipperiest of slippery, slimy, swarthy thieving bastards of all time. Insurance people! A Premium, you see, is what you pay for a policy. Said policy will also have an excess.
Premium means more expensive.
Excess means too much.
Coincidence? Not on your life (which, incidentally I hope you've got insured, after all, how will your loved ones cope when an air-conditioning unit falls on your head, or a plant pot, or you get hit by a bus; because as we know, this is how the majority of people meet their demise, not through heart disease or cancer, no it is travelling obstacles that inevitably kill everyone! "Oh but, you never know!" they say...No, but I can do the maths, and that tells me that I would be better off buying a lottery ticket, because there's more chance of me winning than their is of me dying due to a falling air conditioning unit today! And anyway, if there is suddenly such an increase in people neglectfully dangling things out of multi-storey windows, why the hell is there no new legislation being passed to prevent this!? This is what happens when our lives are so comfortable as to effectively remove all notion of Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' theory...idiots are still hanging around blocks of flats casually draping objects outside of windows like Michael Jackson with a shrouded baby. )

I digress.

That these words become commonplace amongst our vocabulary is a testament to the evolutionary nature of language. But that still does not prevent some elite words being reserved for their specific groups. While this is understandable in some cases, e.g. the scientific community (after all, why do we need to know what deoxyribonucleic acid is when it's initials, DNA, are bandied about everywhere?) In others it is merely a way of a group clutching desperately at their own identity, whilst not wanting anyone else to be involved. A sort of playground "I know something you don't know!" situation, only twice as childish, since it is being performed by adults, not children.

Here is the thing though...We are all involved in this behaviour in some way. Whether it is pet names for your partner, or your own little language, or whether you are a lawyer and speak more Latin than a catholic priest, or whether you work in insurance, and deal purely in lies; we all do it! As such, does it give me any right to moan about it?

Yes, of course it does, because I want in with them, and they want in with me, we all want in with every other group in the world...so, in this spirit of all inclusion it makes you wonder...Why the hell are we always fighting each other?...



...It's because the insurance people won't tell us their secrets. Bastards.