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Words
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Words are the primary medium for articulating internal content for other people — and the words used, both the ones selected and the ones avoided, shape substantially what gets communicated and what gets compiled internally.
The hardware was tuned to use words for coordination, planning, and the transmission of information that direct demonstration could not transmit. The capacity is substantial. Words can communicate operations the listener has never observed, conditions the listener has never encountered, configurations that exist only in the constructed space the words establish. The modern inhabitant inherits this capacity, with words now serving as the medium for substantial portions of life — work, much social engagement, the internal narrative that runs continuously.
TWO COMMON MISREADS
Treating words as if they fully transmit the content they reference. Love, respect, trust, understanding and other compressed words often reference substantially different configurations across speakers. The word meant in one specific way may be received by the other person as something quite different. The apparent agreement masks actual divergence. Communications proceed on the surface while the underlying configurations diverge, with the divergence often only surfacing later — when the configurations the words were supposed to be aligning turn out to have been quite different.
Dismissing words as superficial. The opposite misread, on the basis that the underlying configurations are what matter. The framing produces speakers who do not attend to the specific words used, with the result that the words convey configurations not intended. The compressed casual word that lands harshly. The default phrasing that conveys positions the speaker does not actually hold. The words used out of habit that no longer match the current configuration. Words are not everything. They are also not nothing.
ASSESSING ACCURACY
Notice the words being deployed and assess whether they convey what is meant.
The diagnostic:
- Do the words actually convey the configurations they are meant to convey?
- Are there configurations that have been intended to communicate that the words have not been adequate for?
- Are there words being used out of habit that no longer match what is actually meant?
The honest examination often surfaces specific configurations where adjustment would improve communication. The default vocabulary carried from earlier conditions. The compressions that worked in one context and do not work in the current one. The words being used without examination of what they actually convey.
DEVELOPING PRECISION
The interventions for inaccurate word use:
- In the relationship that warrants it: agree with the other person to use specific words for specific configurations. The shared vocabulary reduces the misalignment that ambient compressions produce.
- In the professional context: commit to defining terms before using them substantively. The discipline produces conversations that proceed on actually shared understanding rather than on assumed shared understanding that often turns out not to be present.
- In the internal narrative: use words that actually describe what is occurring, rather than the compressed default vocabulary. Registering what is happening as frustration rather than as the more accurate disappointment about a specific gap between expectation and outcome loses information in the compression; the more accurate articulation often allows different operations to become available.
The precision is real work and produces real returns. The imprecise vocabulary continues to produce miscommunication and internal imprecision that the precision would prevent.
WORDS SHAPE INTERNAL CAPACITY
Vocabulary affects what can be registered internally.
The one with rich vocabulary in a domain can register distinctions the one without the vocabulary cannot register. Whoever has the words for emotional configurations can process them more effectively than whoever’s vocabulary is limited to a few generic terms. Whoever has the words for systemic dynamics can recognize patterns that whoever lacks the words cannot articulate. Whoever has the words for somatic states can read the body more precisely than the one who can only register good or bad.
Vocabulary is not just communication. It is part of the cognitive substrate available for processing. Building vocabulary in domains that matter is one of the operations that expands what can actually be engaged with — internally, not only externally.
READING OTHERS’ WORDS
The other person’s vocabulary indicates much about their actual configuration.
What they pay attention to. What distinctions they make. What configurations they have available. The person with specific vocabulary for emotional regulation is operating in a different configuration than the person whose vocabulary in that domain is limited to fine and upset. The person who has specific vocabulary for what makes work meaningful has a different set of distinctions available than the one who does not.
Listening to the words other people select gives access to information about them that the surface content of the communication does not directly convey. The vocabulary often surfaces the speaker’s actual configuration more reliably than the explicit content does.
The medium is real and the precision matters. The inhabitant who attends to words produces different effects than the one who treats them as transparent.