Words I hate and you might too
by July 25th, 2007 Patrick GreerYou may be surprised but I actually hate certain words or product names and technologies I love. The following is an incomplete list of such terms;
The above list is incomplete as new ones come into existence all the time and others may be annoyed by other things. On a very personal level I can deal with the terms as I do enjoy technology but they become annoying when I try to communicate the ideas to other people. Yesterday I spoke to a business group about RSS and asked everyone their if they have ever heard the term, RSS. Not one hand went up and all these people were either business owners or highly knowledgeable in their own field.
Another reason some terms can become very annoying is they develop one meaning based on initial use and later as the technology become mature and used for more professional uses it’s hard to change the mindset. The term blog falls under this as a lot of people think of a blog as just an online diary of a self absorbed life so communicating how a blog can be used for business can be quite the challenge.
Finally another source of annoyance is when developers or creators use clever words just for the sake of being clever. The word, Wiki is an example of this. Not only does it change the meaning of the original Hawaiian word for “fast” but it doesn’t communicate the actual function to your average user.
Thankfully for the most part IEEE 802.11 is now known for the most part as Wi-Fi.
What are some terms that are annoying to you and slowed your acceptance or desire to learn about something new? I want to address these “wordy” hindrances to learning and productivity and any suggestions you may have will make this site a more valuable resource. This is also a topic I want to cover in one of our first podcasts. Leave a comment and we will cover these in future postings.
