Language Inflation

With words like "metacognition", "pathology", and "matrix" diluting our daily conversation, the language we speak is becoming inflated. We sound like we know more than we do. Language has a signalling effect. It lets the listener know what we're all about. Whether we use complex words or the simplest form of communication, we let the other person know what we value. Bottomline, if the listener doesn't understand you, what's the point? Our words combined with our tone of voice send deeper signals into the listener's brains and understanding occurs when we create new pathways or add to current ones. Think about a concept everyone can relate to, like food, and all the internal connections you personally have associated with it. When a person talks to you about the food they like or their view on cooking at home or eating out, you view their conversation from a specific set of neural pathways built over years of experience with food. For example, when a vegetarian talks to a non-vegetarian about food, signals can get crossed. Unless...the non-vegetarian has a reason (subconscious or otherwise) to want to explore the vegetarian pathway. To agree or disagree or listen in general, we have to want to do so. When we read papers or watch the news and hear scientific words that eventually become part of our language, we're not explained the neural pathways that are associated with them. A pathologist views "pathology" very differently than a layman does. Our relationships to words, and language overall, comes from our personal experiences with them. It's why we connect with people who connect with our experiences of things. Words passed onto us through media we can't directly connect with only dilutes - and inflates - our language. The downstream effect is a thinning of our relationships because we have less real connection to other people and their experiences. While the New York Times or Washington Post may be allowing multiple people to receive the same message and hence communicate effectively, it also makes for mixed signals because we don't have a deeper understanding of the subject matter. There's no foundation. This post, for example, could only be as good as one's understanding of it. Or looked at on a deeper level, it's only as good as one's connection to it through personal experience, which is more meaningful. I don't agree fully with Ben Casnocha when he says Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit for this very reason. The purpose of communication is not necessarily to spread a message as wide as possible. It's to connect deeply with the few who relate to that message. While Ben's law of averages approach can certainly help this, the approach itself can take away from the connection that could be made. It's a tough dilemma and producers (of products, blogs, ideas, etc.) fall on either spectrum. It's hard to find the middle ground, though the Frank Herberts, Robert Heinleins and Orson Scott Cards of the world have definitely made some headway.