The Decline and Fall of the English Language

I'm taking 12 hours this fall as an MBA student. I'm doing this while working 35 hours a week, and doing a 10-hour-a-week assistantship. The best way to survive something like this is to go to the courses, rather than let the courses come to you. So I'ven been reading ahead, trying to cover as much textbook material as I can, while waiting for the class for the case studies. So far so good. Organizational management's book is clear, if a little extra-PC (more on that later), and even the international finance textbook is clear.

Then, there's marketing. I've been trying for days to plow through this material, and had started to think it was just me. Then, I played my favorite game: Textbook Editor. Let's pretend that instead of a glossy paperback, someone plopped this down on my desk and asked me to edit the book. How much could I improve the text?. Let's see, which would you rather read?

Initial Text:

Not all customers with similar needs seek the same products or services to satisfy those needs. Their purchase decisions may be influenced by individual preferences, personal characteristics, social circumstances, and so forth. On the other hand, customers who do purchase the same product may be motivated by different needs, seek different benefits from the product, rely on different sources of information about products, and obtain the product from different distribution channels.


Joshua's Text:

Different people will buy different products to satisfy the same need, and different people will by the same product for different reasons, based on different information, and from different sources.

Their text: The primary purpose of marketing activities is to facilitate and encourage exchange transactions with potential customers.

Joshua's text: Marketing tries to get people to buy what you're selling.

I suppose one could get used to reading stuff like the authors' text, but why? I know the authors think they're using jargon to write more precisely, but all I'm getting out of it is extra naptime. Not every book, not every subject need to start off with an explanation from First Principles of the specialized economy. It may be fun to try to reframe everything, every human activity, into multi-syllable categories. But you end up with books that only an academic can love. This may be all well and good for the New Criterion, which I adore, but when I'm paying $2500 for a course, I at least expect books I can read without having to slow down for the speed humps and round-abouts.