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March 17, 2005
A rose by any other name
I'm having this recurring issue with folks at work - there are at least two names associated with any given relevant concept - and the names chosen have incompatible semantics.
One guy in particular likes to try to side-step the issue by suggesting we call everything a "foob" (or some other meaningless name).
It's starting to really get on my nerves.
Language exists to communicate - and vocabulary exists, in a sense, to compress communication. Using the right word facilitates communication - it draws on common context and understanding to eliminate the need for a more detailed explanation.
By contrast, using the wrong word (or, equivalently, overloading the common-use meaning of a word) does the opposite - it sends different listeners off in different directions - impeding communication.
English is, to some degree, inherently imprecise. Often significant context required to disambiguate meaning, and even with context, it's not guaranteed that everyone draws the intended meaning from a statement. That means we're fighting an up-hill battle to begin with, there's no need to make it worse.
I don't quite know how I'm going to combat this - but I have to try, it's really getting under my skin. Most annoying of all is when two groups that are ostensibly working to solve the same or related problems use the same word to mean different things, and neither usage is consistant with the norm.
Posted by dberger at March 17, 2005 6:48 PM