To follow up on my Top Ten Garden Buzzwords posts, here is a neat little doo-dad introduced to me by Stephen Ray, a landscape architect in the ASLA LinkedIn group:
The Landscape Urbanism BS Generator
Once you’ve opened the link, simply click on the “Make Bullshit” button, and voila! instant Landscape Architecture/Urban Planning Jargon BS is created for you!!
I also wish somebody would invent a Pretentious Anglophilic Suburban Subdivision Name Generator, to randomly generate names in this well-loved format:
“The _________ at _________ ____________”, as in “The Mews at Crustington Manor”
Black Walnut Dispatch 
And where was this generator when I was taking graduate courses in literary criticism? Hmm?
Oh, I know. Wouldn’t that have been great. What we English teachers need is a Positive Comment Generator for grading student papers so we can move beyond “excellent insight” and “good point”
Excellent! With the help of this handy tool I’ve finally come up with my New Years resolutions!
In 2012 I will…
1. biodiversify green networks
2. embrace seamless metrics
3. seize visionary dynamics
4. allocate probabilistic microclimates
God it’s gonna be a great year!
Well done! Sounds like you’re gonna have a busy year, though. Those probabalistic microclimates are a real bitch!
Now I’m onto some of my peers’ secrets, as they claw for gravy-train city contracts. And each that I read starts with an actionable word…probably tied to a metric!
This is a great invention. A couple of months ago I spent $275 to go to an all day conference called Second Wave of Modernism II: Landscape Complexity and Transformation. If I’d had this BS generator, I could have saved a lot of money.
That is hilarious, James. I suppose the more “academic” the field of study, the more jargon goes along with it. Are your new designs are more complex and transformational?
I am sure others on the ASLA Linked In group may have had this experience:
In the class for subdivision design the professor handed out a little device with three paper wheels joined in the center by a brad. As you turned the wheels they named the subdivision’s streets for you in endless but familiar form. “Breeze Shore Way, Mountain Lake Court, Forest Meadow Lane, Field Oak Enclave, etc.” Of course it was a joke on my professor’s part but only funny because it is so true!
Heather, what a fantastic device. I wonder what sort of wheel our local developers used to come up with some of the subdivision names around here. My favorite: “Limewood Mews” It seems like the tackier the development, the more pretentious the name!
Jargon : “Complicated language made up by professionals to describe simple concepts enabling the exploitation of others”.
Anybody who’s really into this topic should def. read Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm which delves into the degradation of writing and speech making, and the way politicians use language to dupe the public. A timeless essay!
Hey John, I just read the definition and instantly flashed on “TV Advertising” especially cleaning products. Then I realised this was a definition of Jargon. Says a lot about how TV ads think we need to be re-introduced to why we need to clean things….. using ‘anti microbal’, “green clean”, ” instant wipe” ..’.stops spread of germs’…. ‘proven healthy’….. truth in advertising, should be the same as the disclaimers that get rattled off every time drug ads run. I’d love to hear the litany of possible side effects on the environment!