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This is not just for technical writing and coding. It goes for communication and thinking in a technical context as well. You're going to make so many design mi
by kqr 5y ago
This is not just for technical writing and coding. It goes for communication and thinking in a technical context as well. You're going to make so many design mistakes if you use several words for one concept, or the same word for multiple concepts.
I know the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is discounted by linguists, but I believe I have loads of first-hand experience showing how word choice affects design decisions in fairly strong ways.
And that shouldn't really be surprising. We're not discussing things we can plop down on the table in front of us. We're discussing abstractions. We're discussing machines of the imagination. The only way we can construct them in each other's minds is by putting words together in the right sequence. Obviously, the choice of words are going to affect how people picture these machines in their heads.
We cannot be careful enough with the language we use when we try to build complex things.
- marcellus23 5y agoI know it’s not the point of your comment, but the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is about how your language itself structures your thinking, not word or grammar choice in individual utterances or writings made by an individual.
- kqr 5y agoAha! I never dug deep enough into the issue to learn that. Thanks! Is there a name for the phenomenon I'm referring to?
- musingsole 5y agoI don't see your correction. Individual word or grammar preferences are to Sapir-Whorf what tactics are to strategy.
- marcellus23 5y agoNot quite. Sapir-Whorf is specifically about the _structure_ of a language, meaning its syntax, morphology, etc. Vocabulary choice obviously influences how you interpret a specific utterance, but Sapir-Whorf is about how a language's structure influences its speakers' cognition at a basic level, i.e. _how_ they think, not _what_ they think.