People who use technical language and jargon with laypeople, do you think they understand you?

Not to stereotype, but it's usually a certain type of man - engineers, blokes who like to say every road they took to get here, model train enthusiasts, you know

You say "do you reckon we could put a telly on that wall?" and they knock on the wall and say "well, with a semi-internal recumbent RSJ and 40 mill flange capacitor the mortar should copatex at around 180 degrees Celsius given overall partial SWD"

Are you trying to make the other person feel like an idiot? You know what all the words in your sentence mean, so why not say "the piece of wood behind it isn't strong enough so I would need to replace it with something stronger, but yeah, we could"

What is the use in speaking in code to someone who you don't know speaks that code? Surely say "wall not strong" to start with and then when the other person says "ohhh because of the 40 mill flange capacitor?" you will know that they know at least a little bit of the code, and then you can keep building up the jargon until you lose them, rather than drowning them in the first line of conversation

Do you really think people who you have no evidence of having done any engineering will understand in-depth technical language, or are you just entirely socially unaware, or are you trying to make other people look like idiots because they don't understand your code?

Posted May 10, 2026, 10:08 PM UTC

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