Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
SECRET LANGUAGES
are a way of separating our group from the rest of the world. Criminal argot and the cant and jargon vocabularies of the underworld are examples, but there have been efforts at fuller secret languages, with their own grammars, such as the pig latin schoolchildren delight to learn. Alas, some people who ought to know better frequently adopt secret languages of arcane polysyllables wrapped in labyrinthine syntax (long words confusingly strung together). Clear speaking and clear writing put at risk only those with something to hide. Secret languages are for children, lovers, and spies.
