Here's a fresh story from today.

A guy contacts me to adjust a time for a gig in May, which isn't
a big deal as it is at the end of the day anyway.

On my website I refer to strolling magic as "walk around magic" except once
where the word mingling appears. The term "walk around" is used almost exclusively
in communications.

For whatever reason, my mind went on strike, and I ended up saying "close up strolling
magic" in an email to the guy. 5 minutes later he writes back "what does strolling
mean? we don't want a show where people sit down".

And then I got to explain the meaning of magic jargon.

I can only imagine this exact same thing would happen if you dropped "parlor" in
a conversation with a regular well-adjusted person.

Anyway, the moral of the story, use words people actually use and understand, and
above all stay consistent. As far as I remember this is the only time I've
used the word "strolling", and it should stay that way.

I think Strolling Magicians walk slower than Walk Around Magicians. Or maybe it's faster.

I agree that normal real-world people can’t speak any of the magic language, and it's easy for magicians to forget this. But still, there are magicians advertising all over the internet as a Strolling Magician. Even Gig Salad has em for hire.

Tom

So it was news to you that you should use terminology that people actually understand if you want to communicate effectively?

Ok then.

Sarcasm aside it is a disease many performers suffer from. The thinking everyone gets the lingo. They don’t.

The next thing to try to remember is nobody likes magic as much as most magicians do. Otherwise it would be their hobby too!