The scene is the office of the dean of admissions at Instant College. A pale adolescent approaches the dean, who is appropriately clad in flowing white memos.
STUDENT: Y-you sent for me, sir?
DEAN: Yes, my boy. We've decided to accept you as a student here at Instant.
STUDENT: Sir, I can't tell you how pleased I am. I mean, my high school average is 65, I got straight Ds in mathematics, confuse the Norman Conquest with Dday, have a sub-average IQ, and got turned down by every other college in America. Yet in spite of all of this, you've accepted me.
DEAN: Not in spite of it, boy! Because of it!
STUDENT (dimly): Sir?
DEAN: Don't you see? You're a challenge. We're starting with nothing—you. Yet before we're through, corporations will seek your advice, little magazines will print your monographs on such arcane subjects as forensic medicine and epistemology, newspapers will publish your utterances as you enplane for conferences abroad.
STUDENT: Me?
DEAN: You. Because you will be an Expert.
STUDENT: An expert what?
DEAN: Just an Expert.
STUDENT: But sir, I don't know anything and I can't learn much. Not in four years, anyway.
DEAN: Why, my boy, we'll have you out of here in an hour. All you need is the catalyst that instantly transforms the lowest common denominator, you, into an Expert.
STUDENT: Money? Power? Intellect? Charm?
DEAN: No. These things are but children's toys compared to Jargon.
STUDENT: Jargon?
DEAN (turning to his textbook): The dictionary calls it "confused, unintelligible language: gibberish, a dialect regarded as barbarous or outlandish." But we at Instant call it the Expert's Ultimate Weapon. In 1967, it will hypnotize friends, quash enemies and intimidate whole nations. Follow me.
A school bell rings, and the entire faculty enters: Dr. Gummidge, professor of sociology; the Rev. Mr. Logos, head of the theological seminary; Dr. Beazle, head of the medical school; Mr. Flap, instructor in government; and finally, General Redstone, chief of the ROTC. Dr. Gummidge steps forward, conducts the student to an uncomfortable chair, mills about him like a lonely crowd, and begins.
GUMMIDGE: Remember Gummidge's Law and you will never be Found Out: The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the General Public.
STUDENT: In other words?
GUMMIDGE: In other words, never say "In other words." That will force you to clarify your statements. Keep all pronunciamentos orotund and hazy. Suppose your mother comes to school and asks how you are doing. Do I reply: "He is at the bottom of his class—lazy and good-for-nothing"?
STUDENT: Why not? Everyone else does.
GUMMIDGE: I am not everyone else. I reply: "The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and is an emerging underachiever."
STUDENT: Wow!
GUMMIDGE: Exactly. If you are poor, I refer to you as disadvantaged; if you live in a slum, you are in a culturally deprived environment.
STUDENT: If I want to get out of a crowded class?
GUMMIDGE: You seek a more favorable pupil-teacher ratio, plus a decentralized learning center in the multiversity.