Generating jargon comes naturally to business. So no one should have been surprised when entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, Wall Street bankers and the other backers of the new economy embraced the zippy term 'B2B' a few years ago to refer to Internet business between companies — and 'B2C' for online activities linking businesses to consumers.

Jargon creep eventually produced "B2G," for Internet activities connecting businesses to government, and "B2E" for a business's internal, or intranet, connections to employees.

The level of assumed prior knowledge suggests that this worthwhile compilation is aimed at the more experienced linguist. The phenomenon of jargon creep is discussed in the context of language evolving from the use of computers, but the same trend is evident in some places here. A firmer editorial hand might have proved beneficial and at times might have heeded the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes (quoted on page 54), never to use a long word where a short one will do.

Yet the abbreviated prospectus format includes a few shortcomings when it comes to stock and bond funds.

One drawback is jargon creep. With less room available for explanations, some firms incorporate financial buzzwords into the text without defining them. Would-be investors in the Scudder Emerging Markets income fund, for instance, had better know the meaning of such terms as "weighted average maturity," "distribution-reinvestment fee" and "30-day net annualized SEC yield."