The problem with representation in technical language

I was having an enjoyable and extended leave-of-absence from academics for about 5 years. My day job didn't interfere much with my nights and weekends and I really felt that nearly everything that I did had a purpose. Whether this be software development, project management, basic research for my employer, or weekends spent bent on bringing about my own ingenious schemes.

Now that I have returned to academics, I realize that not much has changed in the last few years. It is great to have guides to navigate the enormous amount of material latent within any discipline. I generally enjoy lectures and enjoy the material presented (depending upon the format).

However, there are several things that I don't enjoy.

Particularly, I despise convoluted explanations for simple phenomena. Regardless of the field, the intent of specialized, specific language is make concepts more precise. Gaining this precision compromises generality and has a negative impact on nascent minds. But much of the use of specialized language is conjured out of no more than habit or expectations of academic precedence. Precision is fine, jargon for the sake of jargon is not.  This is done in corporate and government environments ad nauseam.  I shouldn't have to put up with it when doing science.

All precise terms should be succinctly and generically defined wherever they are used. A fundamental problem with the definitions provided for many terms is that they self-referentially depend on other precise terms. For the nascent learner, this is unacceptable. One cannot learn these terms without building conceptual context into which they fit and this won't happen if terms are defined outside of the context of shared human experience. For example: Eigenfunction is a complex sounding German derived word that simply means 'characteristic function'. These characteristic functions along with 'characteristic values' uniquely define a space, allowing all points within the space to be referenced using combinations of the eigenfunctions and eigenvalues.  The reason for the complex-sounding German word is that it is precise.  Mathematics is rife with specialized language.  So are many fields, but some are more sensible than others. Some leverage metaphor, common English, and broad cultural knowledge.  Whereas others seem to be completely unaware of the value of sensible representation.  My criticisms are straightforward:

1. a specialized language is a barrier to learning, understanding, and retention
2. little account of human cognition is considered in the design of technical language

3. technical languages are generally ill-conceived through a process of ad-hoc conglomeration

4. we have adequate knowledge of human cognition to design superior specialized languages

5. I am expected to 'deal with it' as part of the cost of acquiring new technical knowledge

This is unacceptable.  Quite simply, we need to rethink our approach and revise our technical language representations using a consistent approach having a scientific basis.  We must consider aspects of human cognition and human vision.  We must designing our technical languages (just as programming languages are designed) to take advantage of the human mind (just as programming languages take advantage of computing hardware).  

We must do this soon.  If not, the expanse of time (think 10's of thousands of years) will relegate all but the most obvious technical wizardry of today to the domain of the anthropologist.