Magic words
There are some words I’ve put under suspicion. They’re like magic. When they appear everything seems better, more pleasant, more adequate…
I still don’t know what it is, but I’m somehow annoyed. Perphaps they appear too frequently in advertising, products, speeches… I think they hide some… swindle.
3 come to mind now:
- New
- Easy
- Original
do you have more? do you know what it is?
tags:easy magic words new original
2007-01-29 at 8.02 pm
a mi me pasa con “moderno”
2007-01-29 at 10.30 pm
I’ll add: simple, consistent, intuitive, scriptable
I think this post is about things that are desirable but hard to gauge. Especially hard for people without experience to gauge.
2007-01-30 at 8.39 am
I agree with the words from both of you, but I’m not sure if I agree with your explanation, drew.
Most of the things here are hard to gauge, but even if they were easier, what I criticise here is their synonymy with “better” (I’ll try to give a couple of examples later)
But my question was not rethoric, I don’t really know what I find annoying.
2007-01-31 at 6.54 pm
The simple/complex pair for me is a good example.
They try to encapsulate a desireable property, while completely hiding what is the basis of their judgement.
For some, a sum of parts is seen as complex because of the sheer number. Some others would call it simple if each part is minutely defined. Some would say of something as simple if it is monolithic. It may hide internal complexity.
2007-02-14 at 3.07 pm
Que tal Innovador
2007-03-15 at 4.12 pm
I call this “Palabras Plateadas” (silver words)
This is: words that people like to use it all the time so it became meaningless.
My examples:
Sensor (at top!!)
Installation
Interactive
2007-04-03 at 10.19 am
yo cuando veo “joven y dinámica” (suelen ir acompañando a “empresa”) echo a correr…
2007-04-03 at 11.58 am
si, si, los de empresa merecen capítulo aparte. “soluciones” me encanta.
y respecto a “joven”, creo que es el concepto más sobrevalorado de nuestra cultura. Eso si que es una palabra mágica.
2007-06-08 at 1.11 pm
Y por supuesto, si hablamos de «soluciones», han de ser «integrales».
El problema es que vivimos en una sospecha continua: «comunicación», «proyecto», «colaborativo», etc