It is easy to harrumph at academic prose (I do it all the time) and then
to cite someone like Twain to endorse our censoriousness.  But let's not
forget the social purposes of slang--and that's what academic jargon is,
after all--and that Mark Twain RELISHED slang.  Which is not to say
that all slang is created equal, or that all slang slingers sling slang
with the best, but I suspect that if Mark Twain were alive today, he'd
love academic jargon.  Can't you see him juxtaposing a rapper and and
academic a la Scotty Briggs and the parson?  Ice T meets Derrida.

Gregg Camfield