corporate jargon equals verbal play doh
This has turned communicators of all kinds – from fashion influencers to public health specialists – into Kremlinologists who obsessively analyze the behavior of social media algorithms in the hopes of learning how to please them and (more importantly) how to avoid their punishments.
Hence algospeak. Social media users have learned the hard way that... See more
Hence algospeak. Social media users have learned the hard way that... See more
Cory Doctorow • Pluralistic: 11 Apr 2022 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
As awful as all this is, the workarounds themselves are often delightful and clever, testaments to the wit and grace of marginalized communities. For example, sex-workers call themselves "accountants." Homophobia is called "cornucopia" and "LGBTQ" becomes "Leg Booty."
This creativity isn't limited to people I admire or agree with: anti-vaxers have a... See more
This creativity isn't limited to people I admire or agree with: anti-vaxers have a... See more
Cory Doctorow • Pluralistic: 11 Apr 2022 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Helfand compiled a list of commonly bandied-about words and divided them into categories like Hyphenated Mash-ups ( omni-channel, level-setting, business-critical ), Compound Phrases ( email blast, integrated deck, pain point, deep dive ) and Conceptual Hybrids (“shooting” someone an email, “looping” someone in)
Molly Young • Why do corporations speak the way they do?
Sometimes I think of it in this way: if the words already exist to describe something new then maybe it is not truly that novel after all.
Internet Blue • "Disregard the Words"
And yet it should be possible to gaze into this alphabet soup and divine patterns. Our attraction to certain words surely reflects an inner yearning. Computer metaphors appeal to us because they imply futurism and hyperefficiency, while the language of self-empowerment hides a deeper anxiety about our relationship to work — a sense that what we’re
... See moreMolly Young • Why do corporations speak the way they do?
On the one hand, language is a wonderful tool. It allows us to describe these other worlds in metaphors that help us think and imagine them. But there are many places where our language leaves us in the lurch. Like with vision, we don’t have a word for detecting light but not having a conscious experience of it.
ed yong • What Counts as Seeing
My generic career advice for young people is that if at all possible, you should aim to work on something that no one has a word for. Spend your energies where we don’t have a name for what you are doing, where it takes a while to explain to your mother what it is you do. When you are ahead of language, that means you are in a spot where it is
... See moreNoah Smith • Interview: Kevin Kelly, Editor, Author, and Futurist
It might be surprising to you that an organization known for cutting edge technology cares so much about something as soft and abstract as language and how it makes people feel — and that’s exactly why we’re sharing these tips. Everyone has the potential to be brave, audacious, and radically creative, but we often put ceilings on ourselves with
... See moreCourtney Hohne • The monkey, the tiger beetle and the language of innovation
At my own workplaces, the New Age–speak mingled recklessly with aviation metaphors ( holding pattern, the concept of discussing something at the 30,000-foot level), verbs and adjectives shoved into nounhood ( ask, win, fail, refresh, regroup, creative, sync, touchbase ), nouns shoved into verbhood ( whiteboard, bucket ), and a heap of nonwords
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