Accidental Obfuscation

Language is at once lengthy detail of what we need/want to communicate as well as much shorthand when brevity is required, with a lot of space between the two extremes. And I mean a lot of space. For example while there are many claims to the world’s longest English sentence some of the more interesting come from literature including one 13,955 word contender in Jonathan Coe’s novel, The Rotters’ Club. Or a 510,000 word monster representing 20% of the 2.5 million word longest novel published in English (Marienbad My Love) written by Mark Leach. And then of course there is the opposite; shorter declaratives such as “no” when what we want to say can be summed up in as few as one word.

Short is not only good but necessary when time is of the essence; which it often is and as a result we use shorthand for any number of things from occupation titles to made up generic names for products, new technologies in particular. For example, one who teaches children part of what they need to know is a “teacher.” One who writes books a “writer.” One who paints buildings a “painter.” Or should that last one be a “building painter” or maybe a “house painter” so as not to confuse them with those who paint pictures? And now that I think about it maybe “writer” should be “book writer” because those who write for newspapers are also writers are they not? Or are they “reporters” so we don’t confuse them with “writers”? What about police who write tickets??

DLink, a Cisco company who makes a lot of the wireless networking equipment used by many of us in our homes has a product category they call “media players” having started life as “media servers.” Actually a growing line of very useful products whose function is to move “media” such as photos, music and video from our computers to our TV’s and stereos; all with model names that begin “DSM”. Hmmm, DSM as opposed to say MP (media player) or possibly DMS (digital media server) presuming a link to what they were in the beginning. Even TTPYS (thing that plays your stuff) would probably suggest more to most about what the product will do than does DMS.

Short or long our words should communicate and when they don't all we have is can phone talk with a broken line.

Now that I understand.