Suffix '-ese' when speaking of jargon

The subject of the suffix "-ese" was discussed in the newsgroup alt.english.usage . The following is a list in which that suffix is used to indicate a jargon or style of writing which I made with the use of the online *Merriam-Webster's Collegiate* at www.m-w.com . The dates given come from that dictionary. It's possible that the Collegiate contains some "-ese" words referring to jargon which I missed.

1843 Johnsonese 1882 journalese 1884 officialese 1885 telegraphese 1914 legalese 1944 governmentese (also governmentalese in the dictionary at Infoplease.com) 1949 bureaucratese 1951 sociologese 1954 educationese

The Collegiate treated many of these as identifying a given jargon, without indicating that there was something undesirable with the jargon in question. It does define "officialese" as "the characteristic language of official statements : wordy, pompous, or obscure language." But where it defines "Johnsonese" as "a literary style characterized by balanced phraseology and Latinate diction" the dictionary at Infoplease.com defines it as "a literary style characterized by rhetorically balanced, often pompous phraseology and an excessively Latinate vocabulary: so called from the style of writing practiced by Samuel Johnson." Where the Collegiate defines "journalese" as "a style of writing held to be characteristic of newspapers." the dictionary at Infoplease.com defines it as "a manner of writing or speaking characterized by clichés, occasional neologism, archness, sensationalizing adjectives, unusual or faulty syntax, etc., used by some journalists, esp. certain columnists, and regarded as typical journalistic style."

I also took a look at some of these words in The Century Dictionary of 1895 and its Supplement of 1909. Of "Johnsonese," the Century says the following:

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Johnsonese /dZAns@n'is/ or -/'iz/, _n._ (< Johnson (see def.) + _-ese._ The surname Johnson is also written _Jonson,_ ME. _Jonson,_ i.e. John's son : see _John._) The style or language of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), or an imitation of it ; a pompous, inflated style, characterized by words of classical origin (often manufactured).

for publication, he (Johnson) did his sentences out of English into _Johnsonese._ _Macaulay,_ Boswell's Johnson.

If the Easy Chair may speak in _Johnsonese,_ laughter is a condiment, not a comestible. _G. W. Curtis,_ Harper's Mag., LXXVI. 637.

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The Collegiate defines "telegraphese" as "language characterized by the terseness and ellipses that are common in telegrams." The Century Supplement defines it as follows:

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telegraphese /,tEl@gr&fis/, n._ (_telegraph + _-ese._) A very terse style, such as that in which telegrams are commonly written ; a style marked by very short sentences. (Rare.)

We rather relish the leisurely semicolons and sentences of the eighteenth century after being confronted with the "_telegraphese_" of many a modern stylist. _Athenæum,_ Oct. 7, 1905, p. 469.

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-- Raymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com