A friend of mine turned in a paper to a college course on behavior modification. She had tried to express in simple English some of her reservations about this increasingly popular approach to education. She received the paper back with the comment: "Please rewrite this in behavioral terms." It is little wonder that human beings have so much trouble saying what they feel, when they are told that there is a specialized vocabulary for saying what they think. The language of simplicity and spontaneity is forced to retreat behind the barricades of an official prose developed by a few experts who believe that jargon is the most precise means of communication.
Lawrence Langer
Lawrence Langer
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