How accessible is your personal lexicon?
The more we understand each other with our language, the better we will empathize, collaborate, and solve together.
Jargon. Acronyms. Insider speak. We each have our own library.
We also interact with the libraries of others.
How well we do three things will indicate just how effective we are at navigating, succeeding, and elevating in this world. These three things have many links and follow on points, but in case you are in a hurry, here’s what you need to know up front:
Seek to understand.
Beware of creating outsider/insider.
Onboard.
№1 Seek to Understand
If working in Corporate America for the last old adage “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is in jeopardy.
It’s uncomfortable to not know the answer in an environment that promotes assertive leadership. The other adage “to assume makes an ASS out of U and ME”, however, is alive and well.
How do we ask seemingly stupid—aka under-informed—questions?
Try these three moves:
- You’re a scientist landing on a new planet. How would you gather new information? What experiments would you run? What questions would you have? Who and what would help you obtain the evidence you needed to make good-enough-to-keep-moving-forward decisions?
- You’re in kindergarten and you’ve been given the whole afternoon to read books and express answers in pipe cleaners and glitter. Go.
- You’re a doctor saving lives in a country whose language is not your native tongue. To operate well is to understand the team around you—and they, you. How do you bridge language and techniques with different roots…but the same aim?
№2 Beware of Creating Outsider/Insider
Did you know… Leet (or “1337”), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet?
It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance.
What’s another way to make the letter L? Number 7.
Make the letters E? Use 3s.
And re-researching Leet, I learned I should have used “1” for the T.
If you’re still reading, you’re a champ.
If you started checking out, welcome to what it’s like to be around you when you drop into insider speak around someone who isn’t yet in your inner lexicon circle.
That’s perfectly okay! Check back in and immediately commit to at least one of these doctrines”
- Simplify your language.
- Edit and refine before sending; before speaking.
- Seek precision by bridging across languages, times, cultures, people.
- Workshop your exaltation to improve precision by using a thesaurus (solo) and / or with outside, fresh eyes (collab).
- Don’t use jargon.
- Don’t use acronyms.
- Don’t Proper Noun-i-fy terms that aren’t already approved to do so by one of the four major accreditors (i.e. The Chicago Manual of Style / Turabian; Modern Language Association; American Psychological Association; and Associated Press).
- If you need to Proper Noun-i-fy terms for intellectual property reasons, do so in an inviting and informative way that elevates the audience’s comprehension.
Follow these steps and you are steps closer to achieving one of the single hardest things to do: understand those around us; those we love; those we hate; those we don’t “get” and that don’t “get” us.
PS: if you’re lucky enough to be named Leslie, you can spell your name 1337 style with this figure: 317537
put it on your phone calculator and flip it upside — it’s a throwback, just like writing PEN15 and 80085 ;)
№3 Onboard People to Your Lexicon
Too Long; Didn’t Read: The first few times you use an acronym, spell it out.
Take the time to speak and spell the words.
While you think you have simplified the word count, you have likely done so at the cost of losing others in the process. You may have even alienated your audience—which is the last thing I know you wanted to do as a good communicator.
Generally accepted K-12 education teaches us to transition from full phrase to acronym doing this:
First time you use an acronym, don’t lead with the acronym. Lead with the full word. Let’s take: PIN.
- First time I use it, I say: “My bank asked me to verify my Personal Identification Number, or my PIN.” I move it towards an acronym by first making my term a Proper Noun.
- I also add a pause in my sentence (the comma) and explain more about the previous sentence as a conversational aside. This invites my audience in (vs. alienates them, which is What Acronyms Do at First, or WADAF).
- What are other literary tools that create pause, so your audience can catch up? I like the parenthesis. I also like the “ — ” em dash to build drama.
- Periods. And ellipses… are also drama builders; one is staccato. The other, whimsical. Use accordingly…
- I am a consummate student of new ways to alter my words to both embed and imbue the sentence with rich layers of meaning (a’la Ovid). This can sometimes confuse and alienate, too. I am still dancing with it to find the right level of joie de vivre (aka joy of living; an exultation of spirit; spontaneous relaxed enjoyment; sense of play; access to the true self via Wikipedia).
Five (5)other places I spend time to engage new words and concepts, to neither feel left out nor left behind:
Observe language evolve in real time, by region, by tribe.
№2 [Rap] Genius
Understand the etiologies behind lyrics.
№3 Ada
Ada was named after Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), who has been credited as the first computer programmer. It’s been a trip to learn more about this DoD project from the 1970s.
№4 Pascal
The language is new to me, but Pascal and his works are deeply influential in my thinking and doing.
№5 Instagram
Use the explore page and press pass your usual suspects to find new hashtags, new accounts, new communities.
Click on all the links. Go down a 90 minute clickhole to discover the origins. Sketch out what you are learning in a notebook. Make artifacts online to reinforce and remind yourself of the learning.
Last two pieces of advice under this header (promise! I am so hyped about this topic and that you’re here to think it through with me):
(1) Read books from independently owed bookstores and libraries to expand your horizons; and
(2) Do own primary research on the regular. Ask questions of people you meet that invite them to tell a stoory of their lives, their heritage. It will invite you to further horizons and expand your knowledge greatly.
In sum:
Like a skilled musician, it’s up to us to master the fundamentals of language and then dance with the rules.
Thank you for rolling with my formatting, links, and imagery to help convey my point.
I have had this drafted for a few months and am hitting publish on October 11, 2020 so that I can keep refining this idea. I realize it’s a little long at times, which takes some further editing. Look forward to version №2 of this post.
Until then, be well, be clear, and be inclusive.
Leslie Bradshaw is a builder, investor, maker, word nerd, and Latin root lover. Leslie is focused on unlocking and unleashing people’s full potential so there may be healing, health, and wealth in the world.
To accomplish this BHAG* Leslie hugs and pushes intra-preneurs* in her 9 to 5; and hugs and pushes entre-preneurs in her 5 to 9. She is also currently pursuing research in linguistics and AI with a Portland-based startup.
*BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Term coined by author Jim Collins.
*intra-preneur: uncovers and builds new business ideas within the walls of a sponsoring corporate job. Less upside, less downside. Important work to drive ideas at scale. Hard work to execute within a large organization who needs to both deliver near-in growth and invest in long-term growth. Much respect to those in these roles.
