Buzzwords are Underrated

As a rule, my friends and I believe that buzzwords are a very unappreciated part of the American English language(I can't speak to their usage in other peoples' languages). Why, you ask? In my mind, buzzwords, like most of language, are only as serious as the people using them and the seriousness of the context in which they are being used. The name of this blog comes quite directly from buzzwords used in the context of my current job, yet we have no problem taking the words that are used inside the office and applying them to things in our daily lives such as movies, food, event planning, and even the occasional consumption of alcohol. In an odd way, our tongue-in-cheek references to buzzwords like decision rights, liberty, transaction costs, and comparative advantage help us to better understand the true meaning of the words.

Language, like all good spontaneous orders, has no one individual in charge of it. It evolves as it needs to in order to fit the society it is in. One classic example you may have heard of is that Eskimos have over thirty words they use to describe snow. While there is no one person in control of Eskimo language(I wouldn't even pretend to act as if I know what it's called) the language has evolved in a starkly different way than my own to reflect the needs/values of the society and individuals where it exists. For my own part, I'm pretty happy with the 4-5 different words that I know of to describe different kinds of snow.

So how do Eskimos relate to buzzwords? I'm going to say the connection lies in the idea of language being evolutionary. By removing buzzwords from their original context and placing them in a new one, my friends and I are exploring what the underlying meaning of the word really is. We mean no harm. In fact we think that by using the word out of context we allow for it's broader consumption. How many people really have a deep theoretical understanding of the phrase transaction costs? Yet when I use the phrase transaction costs in relation to me not wanting to move my party location on a Friday night from Clarendon to Adams Morgan, it provides a very clear example to someone who may not have that all-important undergraduate degree in Economics. For me, the most effective writers, teachers, speakers, and public figures have always been those who could take a very important yet complicated idea and bring it "home" into a context the average person could understand. In short, by removing buzzwords from their usual domains and messing around with them as we see fit, my friends and I are trying to make a small contribution to this evolutionary process that we call society.