Ecognomospeak

Scientists are sometimes derided as poor communicators for using jargon, rather than plain English, when communicating with non-specialist audiences. There is another profession, however, that is as least as bad, if not worse: economists and bankers. But they seem to be seldom criticised for it.

Here's an example – the public statement from Eric Daniels, Chief Executive of Lloyds Banking Group, explaining the unexpected £10 billion loss by HBOS:

"HBOS's 2008 results have been adversely affected by the impact of market dislocation, which accelerated significantly in the last quarter of 2008, and the additional impairments required on the HBOS corporate lending portfolios"

Now I like to think I'm a fairly bright chap, with a PhD etc, but I honestly have no idea what he's talking about. And Lloyds Banking Group is now 43% publicly owned, so like publicly-funded scientists, he does have some duty to tell us what is going on.

So nil points for Mr Daniels from me in that regard. Perhaps he'd like to come on one of our courses on how to communicate effectively with non-specialist audiences. I'd only charge him 0.5% of his bonus from last year :)

However, the cynic in me wonders if there is a different motivation for bankers retreating into jargon. The banking chiefs grilled by MPs this week admitted that they don't actually have any banking qualifications between them . And several experiments have shown that two year-old children and even people's pet dogs can pick winning stocks more successfully than some highly-paid fund managers. So perhaps their jargon is a figleaf, used to reassure us of their supposed expertise – and to obfuscate when things go wrong.

I'm reminded here of John Steinbeck's observation in The Log from the Sea of Cortez: "It has seemed sometimes that the little men... assumed the awe-fullness of a priesthood to hide their deficiencies, as the witch-doctor does with his stilts and high masks, as the priesthoods of all cults have, with secret or unfamiliar languages and symbols."

Scientists have been encouraged to engage the public to build trust in science. Perhaps bankers and economists could learn a thing or two from us in that regard.