Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash
Words mean things.
Explanation
Words mean things, but that doesn’t mean the meaning is always shared or clear in every case. The problem is that we speak a language, English, which is an amalgam, a mess of joined together languages, adopted words, jargon, and even made up words. And we live in an age where people routinely hide their meaning by using words as if they mean something other than the commonly accepted definition.
You need a shared definition if you intend to communicate clearly to any given audience.
It is amazing how often a word is used in such a way as to negate its meaning in order to win an argument. If I start a conversation with you and describe how my tiger is so tame, so soft, so adorable and loving, it just loves to lap milk from its little bowl, rub up against my leg, and look up at me with its adorable little eyes, you’d suppose I was crazy. However, by tiger, I mean my kitty cat named Tiger, so I’m not crazy, I just changed the definition of tiger.
The same happens all the time in political and philosophical rhetoric or any technical discussion, really. “Data plane” in one computer science context means a database. In another it may mean a special configuration store. In another it might mean a command and control system. These are very different meanings. The same happens in politics, religion, theology, philosophy, math, science, and anywhere else where you can have a specific technical discussion.
This is why it is always vital to define your terms any time you’re discussing something even moderately technical, from software to theology to politics. If you do not start by defining your terms, your audience may hear you saying something you completely do not mean.
- The God spoken of in a typical United Methodist Church is not at all similar to the God spoken of in a conservative Baptist or Bible church.
- The word “tax” does not mean what you think it means if you are talking with someone who belongs to a different political party than you. For someone in the GOP, “tax” usually means “money stolen from me by a legislature that barely represents me so it could be given to someone else for reasons I disagree with” but in the Democratic party it usually means something like “money lawfully taken by government to help others in need.” Charity and theft are different meanings for the word “tax.”
- The term “free will” in philosophical discussions is so overloaded with meanings, it’s actually difficult to give it a definition because you’ll just end up arguing over the definition and never get any further.
When you define your terms, you need to avoid big tent definitions. This is something a lot of speakers will try to do to avoid controversy. If by “avoiding controversy” you mean “saying nothing at all,” why bother opening your mouth if you are not going to say anything useful? If your definition of a term includes multiple definitions, it’s not a definition, it’s a category. If you then use that word, it still has a specific meaning to you and your audience, but you have deliberately made that meaning vague and those listening will hear a different definition. You aren’t communicating. You’re just a noisy fountain babbling away.
Define your terms.
Be precise.
Communicate clearly.
See also STFL #16.