Prose v. Jargon

Edgar Zodiag Friedenberg, 17, is the youngest person ever to appear on a convention program of the American Chemical Society. He is also the brashest. A precocious, articulate young man with an active mind and critical spirit, son of a retired Louisiana merchant, Edgar will graduate this June, loaded with honors, from Centenary College (Shreveport, La.), expects to start graduate study next fall at Stanford. In his 17 years Edgar Friedenberg has been much annoyed by scientific jargon. Last week he addressed the conference on chemical education during the society's spring meeting at Dallas. Far from displaying stage fright or obsequiousness, Critic Friedenberg took these elder bulls of science sternly by the horns, warned them that they had better mend their talk.

Young Mr. Friedenberg advised U. S. scientists to try to write prose instead of jargon, to be literate instead of literal. "The newspapers," said he, "are doing an excellent job in informing the public of the latest scientific happenings. My quarrel is with the scientists themselves. With the present status of scientific literature as a background, a well-written article would stand out in any standard periodical like the single light of a one-eyed car. Good writing can never take the place of good research, but the scholar who has something to say and says it well will command attention. Scientists are still humans, and they cannot experience an emotional thrill over an article entitled, 'A Short Dissertation on the Effects of Alcoholic Tincture of Rotenone in the Control of Thrips on Six-weeks Old Spinach Plants in Richmond and Queens Boroughs,' especially if the article concludes that the tincture has no material effect on the thrips. Mr. Friedenberg suggested that university courses in scientific journalism would work on the side of prose v. jargon.

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