On the claim that jargon is 'compression'

There is a framing I keep encountering that describes domain-specific jargon as a form of data compression. The argument: expert terminology encodes complex information densely, like a compression algorithm. Insiders can decode it. Outsiders cannot. This is presented as a neutral technical property.

It is not neutral.

Three problems:

1. Compression and obfuscation are formally identical. Both take input and produce output that requires a key to interpret. The difference is whether the key encodes real information or nothing. "Wing plates" on a manufacturing floor encodes material, gauge, process, and location. "Leverage synergistic stakeholder alignment" encodes nothing. Both are opaque to outsiders. There is no external test to distinguish them.

2. The codebook is never written down. If jargon is compression, then the decompression dictionary should exist somewhere. In practice it almost never does. The "codebook" is distributed across the memories of long-tenured employees. This is not a compression scheme. It is an oral tradition with a single point of failure.

3. The framing pre-empts criticism. If jargon is "just compression," then complaining about jargon is like complaining about zip files. This makes it impossible to distinguish productive shorthand from exclusionary obscurantism, since both are "compression" under the framework. A framework that cannot distinguish signal from noise is not a useful framework.

The fix is simple and nobody wants to do it: write a glossary. Update it. Make it findable. If your "compression" can't survive being made explicit, it wasn't compression.