One of the worst enemies of good journalism—and of all good writing for that matter—is gobbledygook, which is defined as wordy and generally unintelligible jargon. It’s the kind of long, pompous, vague, and convoluted English that usually finds haven in academic and technical journals, accepted and often understood without question by readers who are mostly of the same language mindset as that of its purveyors. No harm is done, of course, when gobbledygook stays within that rarefied language environment. But every now and then, through the efforts of language-deaf publicity agents and the acquiescence of some mass media editors, it gets into the pages of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines to confound and confuse lay readers.
