Cynthia Marinakos
2 min readSep 18, 2018

Hey Meet Jean. The creative assistant for business. Glad you enjoyed the article. Such a great point you bring up about buzzwords. If we need to include ‘help’ so others understand a word, then is it even worth mentioning the word?

I chat to a chiro business owner the other day. She writes and sometimes edits other practitioner’s blogs. She was surprised to find other practitioners didn’t understand certain terms she had assumed they would know.

I’ve worked in digital marketing and communications for over 10 years now - even I don’t understand many of the terms!

Think of the last time you read an article, either in marketing or not. How did you feel when you came across a word you didn’t know? Does it speed up or slow your reading and understanding of the article? Imagine being directed to a glossary of terms when you’re flicking through on your phone?

I vote in favour of plain and simple writing. The way we talk. The way we look up info. For example, check out the key phrases people use on Google. Notice how they review a product or service.

When we use casual, language — the types of phrases our reader is thinking in their minds, or the way they speak, we instantly connect. When we use analogies, we relate to our reader. But when we use jargon we assume they know, we risk irritating our reader. Being irrelevant. And watering down our message.

Also, using boring, old jargon doesn’t really show our reader that we’re a ‘disrupter’ or ‘influencer’ does it? ;)

Here are a few articles addressing this topic too: https://www.weidert.com/whole_brain_marketing_blog/marketing-buzzwords-could-be-killing-your-content

https://sharingscience.agu.org/jargon-and-how-to-avoid-it/

Let me know your thoughts Meet Jean. The creative assistant for business. Have you been having this discussion at work often?

Cynthia Marinakos

Aussie Copywriter. I love rock climbing high ceilings and hiking amongst ferns.