Language is important. It is how we share what we think with others but even more importantly, it has become an integral part of how we think. If we have words to express something, it is easier to contemplate hypothetical variations on that thing. My dog is very smart but she has a very limited imagination. That is because she lives only in the present and does not think about things in language. Language is a puzzle that she decodes to gain approval not a tool that she uses to master her environment.
This insight was inspired by a You Tube video I watched where Dave Thomas, a popular computer consultant, writer, and publisher told how a bunch of clever people had transformed an adjective, “agile”, into a proper noun, “Agile”, and turned it into a gold mine. By taking a philosophical position statement, Manifesto for Agile Software Development, and turning it into the prescription for solving all the problems inherent in software development, they created an industry that sells books, training, and consulting, among other things, using fear and all the other modern marketing tricks so prevalent in our online society.
They did this by taking the adjective agile and turning it into a noun. I stopped and thought about the fact that this kind of abuse of language goes on all around us. My mother first pointed it out decades ago. She called it “verbing nouns” with her tongue firmly in cheek. It is not going to stop just because we catch people doing it. But we can become more aware of what is going on and think about what the intentions of people that are quick to coin new usage for words are. All we have to do is think.