The Cryptic Language of Modern Times
With kindest regards
With due respect for your person and great sincerity of my purpose.
Chinese spam email
That's my theory: modern times are producing increasingly cryptic language. How can we identify such language? There's a simple heuristic: if your child or your grandma wouldn’t understand the message, there’s a high probability it’s not meant for humans.
I find it interesting (and fun) to take a closer look at this phenomenon.
Corporations
Corporations are not inherently evil. On the contrary, they often promote order and reduce entropy. The issue with corporations, however, is that they must comply with numerous rules and regulations and are constantly producing branding for both internal and external purposes. As a result, they often generate puzzling names and acronyms.
At the company where I used to work, the term 'OPEN' was used to describe a set of production processes. Needless to say, it caused a lot of confusion in everyday communication. “We have just closed the OPEN project.”
Corporations often use long Latin words simply to sound more important: “... utilizes extensive network of experts and real-world experience to offer customized solutions for clients to navigate the geopolitical landscape and make informed decisions.”
The words derived from Latin are the enemy—they will strangle and suffocate everything you write. The Anglo-Saxon words will set you free.
How do those Latin words do their strangling and suffocating? In general they are long, pompous nouns that end in –ion—like implementation and maximization and communication (five syllables long!)—or that end in –ent—like development and fulfillment. Those nouns express a vague concept or an abstract idea, not a specific action that we can picture—somebody doing something. Here’s a typical sentence: “Prior to the implementation of the financial enhancement.” That means “Before we fixed our money problems.”
To master the perfect corporate writing style:
Always place an adjective before a noun—the more obvious, the better (e.g., 'challenging goal').
Consistently use adverbs to obscure missing facts or details (e.g., 'increased enormously').
Avoid action verbs whenever possible (e.g., 'implementation of a strategic initiative').
Corporations seem incapable of communicating in plain, human language. Who knows what they really expect us to do with the world?:
Corporate culture seeps into everyday language from the 'business environment' without any valid reason, much like in this military report: “In these circumstances, a key operational challenge for both sides is to generate formations of uncommitted, capable troops which can exploit the tactical successes to create operational breakthroughs.”
Consultants of all kinds
Naturally, consultants tend to mimic corporations, as they are essentially part of that world.
The term 'feedback' should remain in the realm of electrical engineering, where it originated. When you feel the need to 'give feedback' to someone, both of you are likely in trouble.
I don't want to give somebody my input and get his feedback, though I'd be glad to offer my ideas and hear what he thinks of them.
William Zinsser — On Writing Well
Modern times make definitions rot. Last time I came across the term 'reciprocation' was in a technical manual on a sophisticated high-speed packing machine. It featured a drum with reciprocating movement to properly form a product pack. And yet:
Life’s beauty: the kindest act toward you in your life may come from an outsider not interested in reciprocation.
NNT
Language of emails
In almost every email, you can safely delete the first and last three sentences. Often, a reply could be as simple as one word: 'OK.' Yet, out of habit or fear of seeming rude or careless, people add unnecessary filler.
Do you say 'kind regards' at the end of a conversation in person? If not, why use it in an email?
Modern Books and Media
Modern times have given us modern books, written in the language we deserve. Below is a prime example.
Taleb and his Incerto
God tested Abraham's faith with an asymmetric gift: sacrifice your son for me—it was not as with other situations of just giving the gods part of your yield in return for future benefits and improved harvests, as with common gift-giving, with tacit reciprocal expectations. It was the mother of all unconditional gifts to God. It was not a transaction, the transaction to end all transactions. About a millennia later, Christians had their last transaction.
N. Taleb, Skin in The Game
I often refer to the Bible because it is written, particularly in versions like the KJV, in a simple and deeply human way. Many concepts that people believe aren't in the Bible actually are. The cryptic terms that Taleb promotes—antifragility, black swans, skin in the game, Wittgenstein’s ruler (poor Ludwig)—are, in a sense, cheaper imitations of original ideas, processed through the machinery of modernity. After all, branding is also a hallmark of our times.
And honestly, a clearer and better concept than 'antifragility' (benefiting from disorder) is hard to find:
”Known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:9-10)
Or this: “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” (Luke 9:24)
Antifragility has always been a pale shadow of Sacrifice.
Wittgenstein’s Ruler: “With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matthew 7:2)
Black Swan:
The origin of a true Black Swan event lies beyond our universe, much like what happened to Saul. Once a persecutor of early Christians, Saul became Paul the Apostle, who went on to write the largest portion of the New Testament.
Jordan B. Peterson’s Chaos and Order
The language in J.B. Peterson’s books is generally quite good, in some places, it even has a certain poetic quality:
The abyss is what terrifies, what is at the end of the earth, what we gaze upon when contemplating our mortality and fragility, and what devours hope. Water is depth and the source of life itself. The desert is a place of abandonment, isolation, and loneliness.
J.B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life
The problem lies in the artificial need to rigidly codify and reflect on definitions at all costs. This inevitably becomes cryptic when the author delves into profound topics:
In the Christian tradition, Christ is identified with the Logos. The Logos is the Word of God. That Word transformed chaos into order at the beginning of time. In His human form, Christ sacrificed himself voluntarily to the truth, to the good, to God. In consequence, He died and was reborn. The Word that produces order from Chaos sacrifices everything, even itself, to God. That single sentence, wise beyond comprehension, sums up Christianity. Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better.
Ibid
Chaos vs. order' has never been a real issue, at least not in the Christian sense. But by continuously insisting on it, you end up creating the problem yourself.
And Entropy is essentially the same title as Beyond Order. The irony of life.
Twitter / X
Twitter is a place where the 'speechless' talk, and they do so freely and vigorously.
Quality of life won't be about wealth or success accumulation. We'll measure quality of life by minimizing the amount of technology in our lives. Life's going forward will be removal of technology in reducing its efficiency & effectiveness to stay harmonious with natural time.
Stay harmonious, if you can ;)
Most adverbs are unnecessary. […] Most adjectives are also unnecessary.
William Zinsser
No adverbs or adjectives are needed to describe a story like this:
And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.
1 Samuel 17:49-51
Epilogue
Cryptic messages, by definition, are not important.
In fact, they often mean the exact opposite of what they suggest.
Don’t dialogue with someone you can talk to.
Don’t interface with anybody.
William Zinsser
I disliked Alan Watts for years because of the Brainpickings blog. Ten seconds hearing him speak, I converted.