I saw this message on my walk, “Overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the United States.” Really? So I googled it. Aha, it is poisoning! Except, well, drug overdoses are considered poisoning. It gave me the hyper awareness that we give words a board scope in their definitions and it can undermine the truth. Like research.
Stop the use of “I’ve done my research.” Y’all have not done research. The problem is the word covers a wide scope and I know when people say, “I did my research,” it means a google search, read some blogs or an article and maybe listened to a podcast. What I don’t know if they know this is not the same as research when a hypothesis is developed, data is gathered, there is a control group. etc. I know what people mean. However, when these “researchers” repeat what they found to others, in the game of repetition does the layman’s interpretation become the researcher’s facts?
False equivalence by word of mouth. I had a trip in Austin Texas a few years ago and multiple people repeated one of two things to me. Austin has more live music than anywhere in the world and Austin is like Berkeley. I lived in Nashville Tennessee and found it hard to believe with all the music venues and recording studios that Austin had more live music than any place in the world. Upon my arrival for a one week stay, I found neither are statement true. Which is fine except when I disagreed and ask for a point of reference, people were incensed. I lived Berkeley adjacent in Oakland California for 7 years and in the Bay Area, within 20 miles of Berkeley for 29 years. They are not alike and as for the live music:
In 1991, Austin City Council members voted to declare the city as the “Live Music Capital of the World,” council minutes show. Visit Austin now owns the “Live Music Capital of the World” trademark.
What in the “L?” At the time, Austin had more live music venues per capita. So, let’s just add an L and declare ourselves the Live Music Capital of the World.
So, I’m weird about words. I’ve been around enough people where English is not the primary language to hear various interpretations of slang that is given a different definition. Seriously, the easiest one right now is Butt Dial versus Booty Call. Sure, this gets dismissed as something funny. But it is a problem easily dismissed. Think about WAP, it no longer means just wireless access protocol. Yes, I went there.
The phrase “silent treatment” is from prison reforms in 1835 as an alternative to physical punishment. The belief was if prisoners were forbidden to speak, called by a number versus their names and forced to cover their faces they would reflect on their crimes. Not at all how you use the term today. This shows long term ramifications of words and phrases. The birth of Jesus is considered the “immaculate conception,” because it was a “virgin birth.” However, that is reliant on the modern definition of virgin today versus a more historical perspective where virgin meant young woman.
I led a strategy session once where a couple of attorneys were part of the group. Someone said we did our due diligence and within 10 minutes, others in the room proudly stated they’d done due diligence also. The attorney looked more and more agitated, so, I asked him to comment. “Due diligence means to take steps to satisfy a legal requirement. None of you have done that. It’s a legal term and you’ve used it incorrectly and implies you have done something that you haven’t. Please stop.”
This week, notice language. Consider what you know to be mass exaggerations versus facts. Maybe find your own example of false equivalencies by word of mouth.
Balancing on Unstable Surfaces 