between jargon and platitudes, I prefer jargon

--- Roland Barthes, quoted by Michael Wood in The Meaninglessness of Meaning, London Review of Books, Vol. 8 No. 17, 9 October 1986

From the piece

His first published piece of writing was on Gide’s Journal, and, asked if he knew Gide, Barthes replies that he saw him only once, from a distance, at the Lutétia: ‘he was eating a pear and reading a book.’ What interested him about Gide? Barthes’s answer might be taken as a swift epitaph on himself, four brief sentences wonderfully afloat on all they don’t say: ‘He was a Protestant. He played the piano. He talked about desire. He wrote.’

An earlier, more militant remark is worth pondering too: ‘between jargon and platitudes, I prefer jargon.’ Of course we fervently hope that is not the choice, but if it were? ‘It’s shameful to judge someone on his vocabulary,’ Barthes adds.

Words are to a lawyer what mathematics is to a physicist

--- Owain Blackwell, in "Words are Chameleons: The Languages of Law," Oxford Reference, 20 March 2019

Excerpts:

Words are to a lawyer what mathematics is to a physicist. That being the case, if an observer watched the goings on of, say, the Court of King’s Bench in the 15th century, they might wonder how the legal system could work at all, for they would be hearing words in three languages.

...

So can we contrive a system in which all words are defined and all nuances banished? It is but a pipe dream. For, as Justice Holmes observed: ‘A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.’ Furthermore, it would be a grim day for lawyers if such a dream could be realized. One is reminded of the toast first given at Sergeants Inn in 1756 by Mr Wilbraham, and since then much repeated: ‘Gentleman, to the glorious uncertainty of the law.’ For it is that very uncertainty—uncertainty, usually, over the meaning of words— by which lawyers earn their keep.

“A language isn’t something you learn so much as something you join”

--- Arika Okrent, author of a book on artificial argots, quoted in Tongues and grooves: The lure of made-up languages, The Economist, 6 Aug 2011. From the story:

SCRABBLE is compelling enough, but playing it in Esperanto, for those of a certain cast of mind, is even more addictive. The invented language’s tidy roots and suffixes are well suited to wordplay. A recent game in London featured words like acajeto (a little bit of dirt) and artamehoj (echoes of the love of art). Over its 120-year history Esperanto may have failed in its original mission to bring world peace via mutual intelligibility, but it remains both an engaging intellectual exercise and a route to a ready-made social life.

“A language isn’t something you learn so much as something you join,” says Arika Okrent, author of a book on artificial argots. Few people will bother to learn a language on abstract or idealistic grounds, she says. Esperanto gives them a reason to get started, because of the culture that has grown up around it.

It also covers Klingon (no surprise).