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This explains a whole lot of things -- like for example how I once heard a certain engineering director explain, with a straight face, how one cloud platform wa
by vanusa 5y ago
This explains a whole lot of things -- like for example how I once heard a certain engineering director explain, with a straight face, how one cloud platform was more "agile" than other. By which he meant (as he explained) "has a more user-friendly toolchain". Which is of course a perfectly valid criterion for preferring one platform over another.
But no, he had to say "agile". Which by now of course has become completely meaningless, other than to mean vaguely "good". And as the article points out, a speech signal: a way of indicating "I'm an engineering director (or product evangelist, whatever) now, and one of the ways I maintain that slot in the status hierarchy is by using lingo you don't dare challenge me on, and certainly not to my face. Even though most everyone knows it's basically bullshit."
Before I read the article, I found his choice of words quite perplexing. But now it makes perfect sense.
- wppick 5y agoYes the definition they give for bullshitting is: "According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, bullshit is an informal vulgar term which means ‘to talk nonsense, especially with the intent of misleading or deceiving’. The Oxford English Dictionary defines bullshit as ‘to talk nonsense or rubbish’ and ‘to bluff one’s way through something by talking nonsense’" And the word bluff is a more apt definition for these situations. It is essentially a bluff like in poker. Where the situation is "I might not know what I'm talking about because I'm using vague obfuscated language, but calling me out on it might point out that I don't know what I'm talking about, or it might make you look like you just didn't understand" especially if the audience in also uninformed it can be spun either way