As anyone with an inbox can attest, misused language abounds, and misunderstanding follows. Much of this misunderstanding, Pinker says, flows from what he calls “the Curse of Knowledge”—the writer’s difficulty in conceiving what it’s like for readers not to know something she knows. He’s referring mainly to jargon, shorthand, and specialized vocabulary, the use of which he calls the “single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose.” This seemed to me a great oversimplification until I asked someone I’d just met what he did for a living. He said he was “managing director, digital” at a public relations firm.
“I don’t really know what that means.”
“I’m a digital and social-media strategist,” he explained. “I deliver programs, products, and strategies to our corporate clients across the spectrum of communications functions.”
“Sorry to be a doofus, but pretend I’m ten years old. What do you do all day? ”
“I teach big companies how to use Facebook.”