Monzo's Tone of Voice

[Dan5 (Dan)]

@Neil0

No, because it’s not a field they need to know the terminology for.

If they do need to, then said scientists/economists would find a way to communicate clearly and in a non-exclusionary way.

I think you’re making a very good point for me here

Why should it be up to scientists/economists to decide whether other people need to know something, or not.

That attitude of ‘we’ll dumb this down for other people if we think they need to know it’ is the perfect example of choosing to exclude people

[Dan5 (Dan)]

@Lewis_P

If the nuclear physicist needs to explain something in their field of expertise to an everyday member of the public (or a virologist during a press briefing, to use a popular current occurrence) and insists on using domain specific terminology, aren’t they being exclusionary?

I think this is why JVT has become so popular during the coronavirus briefings. His explanations are so clear, consider and located in everyday language and examples that they’re incredibly easy to understand.

Not only that, but because they’re so accessible and often slightly funny they’re easy to remember and therefore have a much bigger impact. (Huddling in his garden shed anybody?)

Historically the attitude was that using a formal register, jargon, technical terms etc gave whatever was being communicated a sense of trust but in reality it just made it more difficult to understand.

[Lewis_P]

@Neil0

We weren’t excluded from epidemiology for not knowing the ‘jargon’ until recently, most of us just didn’t care until the pandemic hit. Then scientists, journalists etc found ways to explain the terminology to us when we needed to know.

I think we are perhaps getting tripped up on exactly what we’re being excluded from. In my reading of this thread, when we’ve talked about exclusionary language, I’ve taken it to mean excluded from understanding the conversation, not excluded from the field in which the conversation relates.

[Dan5 (Dan)]

You know very well that I didn’t say that it was being dumbed down, but that the attitude was that it needs to be.

Perhaps it’s your turn to go back and reread what I said

You’ve also conveniently ignored the actual point I was making!

[Lewis_P]

@Neil0

If we don’t understand the terminology/‘jargon’, you could say we’re in some way excluded from the conversation, but it may be a converstation we have no interest in (or even awareness it exists).

I think you’ve lost me now haha. Surely we’re only talking about situations in which one party is trying to effectively deliver information to another willing party and what impact jargon plays in that delivery process? Have I missed a step somewhere? Of course I can use jargon in private without risk of excluding anybody, but we’re generally talking about wide public-facing comms, right?

[breville_monkey]

@Lewis_P

Of course I can use jargon in private without risk of excluding anybody, but we’re generally talking about wide public-facing comms, right?

I don’t think we are actually. We’ve been using examples of colleagues talking, university courses and such. The statement in Monzos policy that sparked this is clearly about all use of professional language without limiting that to any specific medium or domain.

[Peter_G]

@Neil0

Monzo has made some specific choices about the language it uses in communicating with customers that could be seen as ‘it needs to dumbed down’ (and indeed has been seen as such in this thread).

Conversely, Monzo has made some specific choices about the language it uses in communicating with customers that could be seen as improving accessibility (and indeed has been seen as such in this thread).

These things work both ways. It will resonate with some people and not others.

(Also, and I’m in no way suggesting this, or indeed believe this myself, but some people might think less of your point - especially being language based - given that the words in your single quote marks don’t quite make sense).

[breville_monkey]

@Dan5

Historically the attitude was that using a formal register, jargon, technical terms etc gave whatever was being communicated a sense of trust

I might cheekily point out this pretty much directly contradicts your statement that the intent of formal language is always to exclude and that there is no other reason to use it .

[Lewis_P]

I think it’s a ‘sense of trust’ in a “just trust me I know what I’m talking about” or "I didn’t quite understand what the doctor was saying but I’m sure he’s right as he’s wearing a lab coat’ kind of way, which is still excluding that individual from understanding.

Edit:

To briefly go back to a previous point:

@Neil0

It’s highly unlikely that, assuming they want to communicate with the public, they would do so in exclusionary ways.

i think there are definitely situations in which an individual or organisation may believe that it’s in their best interest to communicate to the public in a manner that excludes some from understanding what it is they’re actually saying. Politicians do this all the time. They may also achieve a sense of trust through doing so (similar to the lab coat situation above).

To use an example of gaining trust through jargon to achieve profit; “wow these terms and conditions are complicated, I’ll just accept them.”
“Aw what the heck, I didn’t realise I’d have to pay back 200% interest on this loan”.

[breville_monkey]

@Lewis_P

i think there are definitely situations in which an individual or organisation may believe that it’s in their best interest to communicate to the public in a manner that excludes some from understanding

To be clear I don’t disagree with that at all, I can list no end of examples where that’s the case.

I think the difference in opinion isn’t on whether that’s a common use of formalised language or not - we can all agree it is - but on whether that is the intention of all formalised language and all jargon, in all cultures.

[OJFord (Oliver Ford)]

@Rat_au_van

Why does professional have to mean using a longer word than you’d use normally?

Does it mean shorter and more emoji-filled though? ( )