If you ever visit any Christian theological blogs or listen to certain podcasts, I'm sure you've noticed the technical jargon that they tend to use. Contrary to popular belief, this jargon isn't used for the purpose of confusing the masses and making the writers seem smarter than they actually are (that shouldn't be the reason, at least). In reality, people resort to this usage of jargon for precision's sake. It's much easier and more precise at times to use the word "apologetics" than it is to have to write out the definition each and every time.
The problem is that, most of the time, the terms remain undefined on the website. Not everyone who visits these sites has a PhD or has ever read or written something at the doctoral, masters, or even undergrad level. Not everyone who hears one of these weird terms that no one else uses knows exactly what it means. Or perhaps the authors defined the terms in previous posts two years ago and don't feel the need to define them again. But not everyone has the time to dive into two years of old posts to find the definition, especially if the author is someone who posts every day, or multiple times every day.
Although I don't want to imply that there's anything wrong with using these terms with my next statement, I'll say that I, too, am "guilty" of using these terms at times, honestly because I'm going for precision in what I say. But that doesn't mean that everyone who reads my blog knows what I'm saying, or even that I'm using the term correctly. What we need is some definition.
You may notice the top of my blog now has a page titled "The Jargon List." Yep, I'm going to start storing all the jargon I use right there for easy reference! Right now it's pretty short, but I realized when I first considered this idea that I could potentially just keep adding things before I post it and just never post it because I keep thinking of things to add. So I've decided just to stick with words I have used recently or do use often. I'll add any new terms in the future if they come up, or if I deem it necessary to do so.
In addition, you may notice the fun little dotted line under the word "apologetics" in the first paragraph. No, it's not a link. If you hover over it, you'll see a tooltip pop up. I've decided that, while the main page is a great idea for consistency and reference, not everyone will want to have to have two pages open to scroll through to understand my posts. So I've decided that, when a technical term comes up, I'll add the tooltip with the definition of the term so you can simply hover over it, see what it means, and continue reading. Yay for (hopeful) ease of use!
I hope this helps you all out. It'll help me for sure; it means I don't have to define a term in-post every single time I use it. I can define it once and then use tooltips later. That way, the flow of the post doesn't have to be interrupted by the need to define words, and you, the reader, can know what I mean by those terms. It's a great way to ensure original intent is preserved, and hopefully will help you understand me better.
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