15 minute read
Nature
What on Earth Is He Talking about?
JARGON. IT CAN BE THE MOST ANNOYING THING IN THE WORLD TO LISTEN TO. YET IS THERE ANY SENSE IN IT, AND DON’T WE ALL USE IT SOMETIMES?
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For instance, you are discussing with a all came down friend a recipe you would like to try. to hunting. You may ask, “Do you marinate the meat? Now Mankind had always hunted for foodHow long for? Do you seal it?” All these (hence “Hunter-gatherer” as a descriptionare asked in the jargon of the cook. You of Early Man’s lifestyle), but as societyunderstand them, your friend understands developed, kings and other high-ranking comfort, and recapture the heady days ofthem, and a lot of time officials spent more their youth.is saved because you don’t have to describe a mutually understood set of processes. Where did it As soon as someone stops doing something, they get all misty-eyed about it and want to do it again time ruling or fighting, and hired underlings to hunt their food for them, and as is the way Only now it was exclusive, and you didn’t want the proles and the plebs joining in, so you invented a system of special words which all those “in the know” could use, and which an outsider couldn’t unless they all start? with these matters, were initiated and took the trouble to learn I started thinking as soon as someone stops doing them. These included collective nouns for animals (hounds, for example, wereabout this when I looked up “Collective something, they get all misty-eyed about it counted in “couples”). Different processesnouns” while I was researching starling and want to do it again. So a form of in butchery were set up and named (you murmurations. It turns out that this ritualised hunting was instituted, for may remember the Sword in the Stone, by business of having special words for which large tracts of forest (e.g. the New TH White, in which poor King Pellinore groups of different creatures started off Forest) were created, where kings and gets one of his terms for part of an animal not long after the Norman conquest, and their entourages could hunt in relative wrong and is spanked ritually with the flat
By Mike George
Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente
In 1470, Paolo Uccello, pioneer of artistic perspective, painted The Hunt in the Forest. Hunting at night? Many experts see a deeper meaning, especially as the hounds and the quarry seem to be ignoring one another!
of a sword-blade). Even animal droppings were specially named (deer droppings were “Fewmets”). Of course, if someone used these terms, it marked him out as an “initiate”, someone who was part of the hunting fraternity, and to whom you could talk familiarly as an equal. (King Pellinore again, “Like to see some fewmets?”, “Jove, yes, love to see some fewmets.”)
Jargon becomes codified
This was first set down in writing by Walter of Bibbesworth in his “Treatise” of the mid-1200s, and expanded by other writers as the Middle Ages progressed towards their end. By 1486, the terms ran to a list of 164 items, and there are signs that they are not being taken particularly seriously. Some of the collective terms are being extended to certain groups of humans. From here on it starts to get quite cynical, and you get suggestions such as “A Doctrine of Doctors” and “A Sentence of Judges”, even “A Incredibility of Cuckolds”. These appear in “The Book of St Albans”, originally published in 1486 and reprinted several times throughout the next 150 years. This eventually became a rather satirical game, but strangely the animal part of it was taken seriously by some, and many of the terms ended up being included in lexicons, which of course pinned them down as legitimate. As new animals were discovered, some misguided lexicographer would come up with a collective noun for it (“A Crash of Rhinoceroses”). So that is why as a child I had to learn lists of collective nouns for a whole range of animals, most of which I have never used since.
Jargon – good or bad?
But of course, as man’s knowledge and inquisitiveness grew, and as he began to find out more and more about the world around him, it became necessary to describe and discuss new ideas. This of course required new words or the changing of the meaning of old words. This meant that people familiar with the new usages could speak in a sort of shorthand. This had a threefold use. It shortened the need for speech, as one word could describe a whole concept or process; it identified fellow-devotees of the subject you were discussing, as they showed understanding and could enter into the discussion; and it kept outsiders at a distance because they had no idea what you were talking about, and you could “preserve the mysteries”. Eventually the term “jargon” developed to describe this type of language, from a word related in origin to “gargle” and used, by Chaucer among others, to describe the warbling and chattering of birds. To a large extent jargon still fulfils those three functions. As one who has spent much of his life in the company of researchers into arcane matters, I know how easy it is to speak in the shorthand of jargon, and indeed how it enables the mind to concentrate on the subject. When
used among like-minded researchers or philosophers, it has great benefit. It also enables you to identify the degree of knowledge of someone you do not know well. If you are describing something to someone, and they do not show incomprehension when you tentatively use a jargon term, you know they have at least some knowledge of what you are saying, and a lot of explanation time may be saved. These days, “Preserving the mysteries” is less of an issue, except in commercial circles, and relying on jargon to cloak matters you do not want aired is a risky strategy!
Where does that leave the rest of us?
We have all had moments of frustration, especially recently, when we have been desperate to learn how the war against the pandemic is progressing, and some spokesperson has launched into a stream of medical-speak which we laymen cannot follow. Why can’t they say something we can understand? In all probability they have no way of saying what they mean in simple language. That is the problem with jargon. You begin to think in it and never put the words into simple form, because you do not need to. Everyone you usually talk to understands what you are saying, and it saves you time. That is what it is for. The fault lies with the media producer who says, “Get the top expert in and interview him.” The interviewee he needs is a member of the team – there is usually one - who has the skill to translate and explain the jargon, but nobody will have heard of him, so get the “big name” in and hope your hapless interviewer (who probably knows less than many of his viewers) can make sense of it all. What is really needed is a translator, someone who can take the incomprehensible stream of jargon and put it into words that the rest of us can understand. The trouble is, should this paragon be a journalist or a researcher? If it is the researcher, he will probably be unable to bring his language down to a level which his audience can understand. Speaking jargon becomes second nature, and is a habit that is hard to break. If he is a journalist, he may be unable to grasp the concepts he must put across, and while his words are understandable, the facts may become distorted or plain incorrect. Either way, the result will be confusion and mistrust. Really, it is an almost impossible task.
Down with the kids
Two things we must distinguish between are jargon and slang. Jargon, as I have said, is a work language. It will adapt to increased knowledge and changes in the nature of the work, but in all probability it will still remain valid over many years. A retired doctor can still confer with younger colleagues. A modern Nuclear Physicist will still understand the language used at Los Alamos all those years ago. Slang, however, while it serves a similar purpose for the users in that it identifies someone of the same background and lifestyle, is by virtue of the way it is used, so variable and impermanent as to be incomprehensible after a relatively short time. Much of it is, unlike jargon, a way of excluding non-initiates, so must be changeable, almost like a password. Fortunately, except in very extreme circumstances, the ability or lack thereof to speak or understand slang is not a life-changing matter! But remember, if you try to use the slang you grew up with, you will be met with blank incomprehension by anyone a few years younger, or older, than you.
What is the answer?
So I am afraid we are stuck with jargon, and we have to gird our loins and seek out the meanings for ourselves, if it seems worth it. Luckily in the world of the Internet, there is no end of opportunity for such exploration – if we only had the time! But beware of research into medical jargon; as Mark Twain said, “You don’t want to die of a misprint”.
The Common Starling Sternus vulgaris (Fr: Etourneau sansonnet). Beautiful enough on its own; stunning in the mass.
Birds of a Feather Flock Together
WHEN YOU WERE AT SCHOOL, DID YOU HAVE TO LEARN LISTS OF COLLECTIVE NOUNS? THOSE WORDS THAT DESCRIBED A WHOLE LOT OF THE SAME THING COLLECTED TOGETHER?
By Mike George
Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente
One of them would have been a murmuration of starlings. Why not a flock of starlings? They are just birds, after all. What is so special about a load of starlings? Well, you are right. Mostly you just see a couple of dozen starlings fly overhead, and that is a flock. However, if you keep your ears open, you will get some indication of why a different word might be appropriate. Starlings have relatively small wings for their body-size, and consequently have to beat them quite rapidly to stay aloft, and this produces a soft sibilance which, if it is a quiet time of day, you can hear when enough of the birds fly over. You can even sense a sort of vibration in the air which seems to be outside the normal hearing range. In addition, starlings tend to keep up a constant trilling chirp to communicate with each other in flight. When this all mixes together, there is a distinct murmur audible. But there is more to the flight of starlings than this. For most of the year, a flight of a few dozen is the most you are likely to see at one time. Starlings are solitary birds for the most part, but under certain circumstances they will become excessively communal.
Keeping warm for the winter
As autumn approaches, and the nights become colder, the starlings abandon their solitary sleeping arrangements in scattered trees, and begin to congregate as night begins to fall. They will select a suitable environment – usually a low-lying area with short but dense cover and plenty of water and food available – and will try to gather into a great congregation of birds nestling together for warmth and safety. To do this they must first overfly the area. This they do in vast, wheeling masses, which other individuals or flocks will join. When enough birds have arrived, and just as the sun sinks into evening, the whole mass will descend to roost, and the sky will suddenly clear, while a mass of birds huddles together in the low cover to keep each other warm throughout the night to come. This huge flock of flying starlings is the murmuration, and it is a phenomenon
A still shot of a murmuration cannot convey the sheer poetry of the wheeling, intertwining movement of the mass of birds.
which is getting rarer in the U.K., but strangely more common in France. The noise which accompanies the flock has to be heard to be believed, and amply justifies the name. I remember driving home from work in Exeter towards the east of Devon. On the outskirts of the city was a large roundabout, which slowed traffic to a crawl. This became less irksome in autumn, as I would reach the roundabout as the sun was setting, and the air above it would be alive with hundreds of wheeling, twittering starlings forming a great swirling black cloud. I would watch spellbound, although ever conscious of the proximity of the Devon and Cornwall Police Headquarters on the same roundabout, which made us all consider our driving carefully! But why do the birds do this? In point of fact, if you want to start an argument among ornithologists, this is a good question to ask.
Safety in numbers?
One’s first instinct is to say, “Safety in numbers.” It is received wisdom that one individual is safer in a crowd than on his own. There is some survival sense to it. If you are a starling flying on your own and a hungry falcon comes along, there is 100% chance that you will be on his menu. If there are twenty of you flying together, your individual chance of becoming a falcon’s lunch drops to 5%. However, some observers have taken that further. It has been suggested that a large group of individuals all moving as a coordinated unit may look like one huge organism to a predator, and so discourage attack. There may be circumstances where this could be true, and it is readily observed that predatory hawks can be disoriented by such a wheeling mass –spoiled for choice, as it were – but it seems to me that you would need to be a particularly short-sighted predator (something of a contradiction in terms) to be fooled into thinking a flock of birds – or even a shoal of fish –was one organism. Besides, Mr Attenborough has recently treated us to films of sharks, dolphins, whales and even gannets, plunging through intimidatingly large shoals of mackerel and devouring the fish wholesale, without apparently pausing to consider whether the shoal was going to attack them back! There may well be other reasons why these great wheeling flocks of starlings form. The most obvious is that, if you are all
going to settle down in one limited place Is there anything we can learn? This research is exciting because it has to sleep, you need some way of telling everybody where it is. What better way to point to the place than by means of a towering mass of thousands of birds wheeling over the site making enough noise to communicate with every starling within miles? Also, the flocking gives everyone a chance to survey the site and sort out who is going where. Another suggestion is that, while wheeling But just how does the entire mass of birds move in the coordinated, smooth way that is so breathtaking? We are pretty certain that shoals of fish maintain their relative positions by sensing pressurechanges in the water around them as their distance from their fellows changes, and moving accordingly. However, shoaling fish are equipped with pressure-sensing cells that Researchers charged with designing traffic flow systems in these days when driverless traffic is a goal of road-planning are actively studying such natural phenomena implications for the control and coordination of traffic in the human environment. Researchers charged with designing traffic flow systems in these days when driverless traffic is a goal of road-planning are actively studying such natural phenomena. We only work in two dimensions; starlings keep perfect collision control in three! The murmuration is an autumn and winter phenomenon. If you are lucky enough to see one, take the time to watch it, to marvel at its stately grace as the birds weave in their thousands through the air, about, the birds communicate information enable them to do this. Starlings and other clouds breaking up, circling and about feeding sites. We know that such birds rely on eyesight. Recent studies have coalescing, then finally, as dusk settles, information is shared among organisms – suggested that each individual bird will suddenly seeming to tumble from the sky the bees we looked at recently do this to keep careful watch on the seven birds and disappear into the cover of the coordinate their search for honey – and it closest to it, marking any change of ground. Do look online, too; there are may well be that, either by voice or by relative positions and adjusting its own several films on YouTube and other movement, similar information is flight-path accordingly to avoid collisions websites. I have been privileged to see it exchanged within the starling flock. and interference. often, and it never fails to enrapture me.
