Post #4154694

@aud@fire.asta.lgbt You hit on a point that comes up a lot in the study of languages and information. There's a trade-off between the amount of information a word can convey and how precisely you define it. In technical fields, it's common to take a term and give it a very, very specific definition. Sometimes that can mean taking a generic term and making it specific (think "function" in programming). Sometimes that can mean borrowing a term that doesn't *really* fit, but making it work for the context (think "factory" in programming). I'm using programming examples because it seems like that's an area you're familiar with, but many other specialized fields do the same in other ways. Biology has "families" of organisms. Math has a very strict definition for "proof." But in adding precision to a word, you actually *take away* from its usefulness in a lot of contexts. Colors are the easiest example here. "Green" describes a whole host of colors that are dependent on perception, cultural context, and a number of other things. But if you put "green" into CSS/HTML, you will only ever get one color. The inflexible definition has its uses, of course, but the flexible one is what we turn to when "good enough" is good enough, which is a surprising amount of the time. To your point, I think both have a certain sort of "usefulness" — yes, there I go being self-referential by not overly strictly defining the word "useful." The more important part is using the right tool for the job you're trying to do. I think *that* aspect gets lost on the folks who champion the concepts you mention.