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Fancy words are for pseudointellectuals, right? You shouldn't need to use a sesquipedalian word to describe a foot-and-a-half-long hotdog, eh? You just say it's looonng!

This argument is always in favor -- after all, learning big words can be hard. People flock to arguments supporting easy choices, like the ones which say that the body needs fat, that red wine is good for the heart, and that Jim Fixx died an early death.

But words which succinctly replace long explanations for specific things or concepts are indispensible. How can you say, "I regretted granting parole to Willie Horton," without using the high-level concepts of regret, granting and parole? That short sentence (pun intended) would grow unwieldy without these crucial words.

In sports and other areas of specialty, the special lexicon of terms of art serves as a way of "chunking" our knowledge so that we can use these chunks 1) to express ourselves more effectively, and 2) to create more sophisticated chunks incorporating deeper understanding. For example, if you were "tailgating" at the Bears game you were combining the concepts of party and pick-up truck. "Rubbernecking" involves traffic, accidents and curiosity. Examples abound.

In disc, words like "cag," "gratuitous," and "strike" convey important concepts. New slang phrases appear when a pattern of behavior is recognized as functionally distinct from other patterns. For example, many different handlers move without the disc in many different ways, but those who play cag stay behind the disc for easy resets at the expense of yardage gain and significant repositioning. Likewise, the strike call recognizes that free cutters up the sideline pose a unique kind of threat. When we say to a defender, "poach off the cag and clog the lane," we are communicating a sophisticated concept which requires the defender to know about the cag as well as poaching, positioning and throwing lanes. We need the previous terminology to issue the demand. If this behavior becomes so useful and popular (it won't), the sport may endow it with a name of its own, like "clagging." Think about how specific the squeeze play is in baseball. You need significant chunking to describe it.

We need to be able to refer to our game and its structures quickly and easily, and a growing lexicon helps us do that. Teams have their own terminology for positions and plays as well. Disc argot is different in different regions, too. When a certain group understands and accepts a terminology, there is a common knowledge base from which to grow.

None of this is revolutionary, but the (underappreciated?) point is that when terminology is not standardized (say, on your team) it is a real impediment to understanding and growth. A classic example is when you have just switched defenders with a teammate and he shouts "Stay!" Stay switched, or stay with the original? Another example is when rookies are not systematically instructed about the team's phrases. This sink-or-swim philosophy can only hurt the team.

Vive la dictionnaire!