A psychologist tells you what you already know in a language that you cannot understand.

The earliest located form (1898) was presented as a remark by an unnamed farmer, originally aimed broadly at “science.” By 1930 the joke was circulating in a form targeting psychologists; Harry Walker Hepner included it in his business-psychology book but explicitly framed it as something “one wit” said rather than his own line. Later decades show the same structure reused for other fields (e.g., sociology, semiotics, cultural studies), indicating it functioned as a portable jab at professional jargon rather than a stable authored quotation.

The quip mocks expert language as needlessly technical: it suggests some professionals repackage common sense in obscure terminology, creating the impression of depth while making outsiders feel excluded.

A psychologist is a man who tells you what you already know in a language that you cannot understand.

Science consists largely in telling people things which they already know, in a language which they cannot understand!

And why tell us things we already know in a language that we cannot understand?

Psychology is a science which tells you what you already know in a language you can’t understand.

Semiotics tells us things we already know in a language we will never understand.

Someone once defined a sociologist as a person who tells us what we already know in language that we cannot understand.