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