My Dogfight with Jargon
Military pilots joke that we would fall apart without acronyms and jargon - well, I joke about that.
Aviation has a language of its own. Can you decipher this:
"Ghost 11, Jacksonville Center, descend at pilots discretion, you are cleared BIGGI at or below flight level two-four-zero."
This is routine air traffic control chatter that you may have heard if you listen on the ATC channel if your airline offers it, or of course if you are a professional pilot under positive control. We can figure a controller in "Jacksonville" which we know (or do we?) is an area of the southeastern United States is directing an airplane called "Ghost 11" (whatever) to descend - whenever the pilot wants - to BIGGI (what?) and be at or below flight level two-four-zero. (uh...24,000 feet? Yes!)
How about this:
"Marshal, Decoy four-zero-zero checking in, flight of two, on your two-one-five for forty-eight, angels twelve, low state five-point-three."
OK, before we continue with that mind-numbing conversation I'll stop! Pilots can have animated conversations with each other, using actual alpha-numeric symbols and some English sprinkled in there, that the layman would never understand. The same can be true of police ("One Adam Twelve, One Adam Twelve, three-eleven in progress..."), medicine ("He's coding! Get him to the ICU stat!"), law ("The DA's not gonna settle for three if it means..."), government ("If you guys mark one word of this, I swear HAC-D is gonna take all that R&D in the out-years and...").
But wait...much of the above, not all, but enough, is familiar to us from popular entertainment. I don't know what a three-eleven is, but we're soon going to find out! Coding? Stat? Sounds urgent, especially if the actors and the dialogue leading up to it convey it. Writers, builders of word pictures, can convey it.
We've been exposed to these professional worlds - repeatedly - in popular entertainment. Tactical aviation, not so much. We've all seen TOPGUN and love it. "Tell me about the MiG some other time! Now get outta here!" (My wife elbowed me in the theater when I guffawed at that line.) But what is a MiG? Well, I guess it's a bad guy jet. Not exactly, but close enough for our fantasy story so we'll move on because we only have 90 minutes. There have been other attempts at tactical aviation by Hollywood (Call to Glory, Emerald Point, Iron Eagle...sigh) but they are pretty much dumbed down. The police and medical shows probably are too when viewed by professionals, but there have been some terrific shows over the years that "expect more" from their viewers.
Novelists expect more too. If a reader picks up a genre military techno-thriller action adventure novel and takes the time to read it, he or she wants to be taken to that world. I do. Don't we want to learn details, hear the voices of the characters, feel and hear what it is like? Wow, I didn't know that about this world is a reader-reaction goal of novelists for whom authenticity is important. Readers of military fiction want authenticty. I sure do!
Yep, there's a balance, and I'll raise my hand. Reader reviews are diverse (Don't change a word! - Much too much jargon!) but I probably erred on the "too much" side with Raven One. Only a little though, and while I'll keep that in mind for the next one, most reviews are positive and appreciative of an authentic story. I'll continue to write for readers of military techno-thriller fiction and if anyone else wants to come aboard and enter this world they are more than welcome! Frankly, I hope they do, and will strive to find the sweet spot while respecting everyone's intelligence and "keeping it real."
How much jargon is too much? Just one term too much, which in my view is preferable to one term not enough.
Would like to hear your thoughts. What is easier to write and read? "Four-zero-one, break right!" or "401 break right!"