Words and Language About Work
Of the logical fallacies and tries in Chapter 14, the one that worries us the most is probably equivocation. Vague words can do more than defer pain – they can actively deceive. Then, when you are caught, the perpetrator can use a different definition of the word, which is more defensible. Of the problems that we discussed in Chapter 13, narcissism probably scares us the most. Narcissistic conversations appear to be about some objective reality (the “content”) but are more likely to be about power. Even if you don’t fall into either of those traps, having only genuine conversations with genuine people, you can still get messed up by having different assumptions about what the words mean.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- How context-driven testing looks at testing compared to the other schools
- Precise language and how to spot imprecise alternatives
- Wordsmatter (versus “words matter...