Words that reveal not conceal
The words we choose do more than describe reality. They shape what we are able to see. Some language brings problems into focus while other language keeps them out of reach. This is not a question of style or preference. It is a question of what can be understood, shared and ultimately changed.
Every year, new words and phrases enter the lexicon. In business, technology and public life, language expands constantly. Some of it reveals things we could not previously see. Some of it does the opposite, giving the impression of precision while leaving the underlying problem untouched.
In every field, we create language to describe what we see. But we also create language to exclude, protect and obscure. The same instinct produces both clarity and confusion. That is what makes jargon so difficult to judge.
Ludwig Wittgenstein captured this idea precisely. Writing in the early 20th century, he argued that many of the problems we struggle with are not problems of the world, but of how we describe it. In Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, he drew a sharp boundary: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” If we lack the words or concepts to describe something, it remains vague, unexamined and effectively out of reach. Expand the language, and you expand what can be understood, shared and acted upon.
Francis Bacon showed what happens when insight is given structure and, eventually, language. Before his time, inquiry was fragmented and shaped by authority. Bacon replaced this with method, setting out a disciplined way of moving from observation to insight. But it was the later articulation of this approach as the “scientific method” that allowed it to spread. Once named, it became something that could be taught, repeated and improved. Science did not scale because of better ideas alone. It scaled because its way of thinking became explicit, shareable and comparable.
Friedrich von Wieser provides a clearer example of language changing behaviour directly. Economists had long analysed decisions in terms of visible costs, while the real trade-offs remained implicit. Wieser gave that missing dimension a name: “opportunity cost”. The term made explicit what had previously been easy to ignore. Every choice now carried the cost of the next best alternative. Once named, the idea became unavoidable. Decisions could no longer be judged in isolation. They carried a shadow. The phrase did not introduce complexity. It revealed it, and in doing so, made better decisions possible.
Not all language clarifies. In many organisations, it does the opposite. Corporate speak, acronyms and frameworks often create the appearance of precision while leaving meaning untouched. Sentences sound considered but say very little. The language signals sophistication, but the underlying thinking is thin. In these cases, words do not reveal problems, they conceal them.
This language does not make problems visible, it makes them tolerable. Layoffs become “rightsizing.” Customer data breaches become “incidents.” System failures become “service degradation.” In each case, the underlying reality is unchanged, but the weight of it is reduced. The language does not clarify, it cushions. And in doing so, it allows difficult truths to pass through organisations with less resistance than they deserve.
A decade ago, I argued the case for jargon and acronyms when used as tools for clarity and efficiency. That argument still stands. Jargon can act as a legitimate shortcut, allowing complex ideas to be communicated quickly among those with shared context. But it also carries risks. It can exclude, obscure and, at times, be used to avoid the detail altogether. What that earlier argument understated is that language does not just shape how we communicate ideas. It shapes which ideas can be seen, defined and ultimately acted upon.
Most problems do not begin as clear challenges. They begin as unease. Something feels inefficient. A decision feels off. A pattern emerges but cannot quite be pinned down. In organisations, these signals are easy to ignore. They compete with issues that are already defined, measured and owned.
Without language, ambiguity persists. And ambiguity rarely attracts attention or resources. The moment a problem can be clearly described, something changes. It becomes shareable. It can be discussed, prioritised and owned. It can be tested and improved. In short, it becomes real.
This is where jargon, at its best, plays a critical role. Good jargon is not decorative. It is functional. It is compressed thinking. Terms like “opportunity cost” or “technical debt” capture ideas that would otherwise take paragraphs to explain. More importantly, they create a lens through which decisions can be made. Once you see technical debt, you begin to manage it. Once you understand opportunity cost, you begin to make trade-offs more deliberately.
Jargon is what happens when a field has learned enough to stop explaining everything from first principles. But not all jargon is equal. Good jargon clarifies while bad jargon camouflages.
Bad jargon emerges when language runs ahead of understanding. It fills gaps in thinking with familiar-sounding phrases. It creates the illusion of progress without the substance. In these cases, the problem is not the words. It is the thinking behind them.
Seen this way, jargon is not something to be eliminated. It is something to be earned. It should emerge from genuine insight and serve a clear purpose. It should make thinking faster and sharper, not slower and more obscure. The right words do not just describe reality, they make it changeable.