Replacing a word with a long definition is, in a way, like programming a computer and writing code inline instead of using a subroutine.
When the definition’s short enough to be used inline or there’s a connotationally neutral synonym available, sure. Otherwise, it’s more like rewriting a function instead of using a library call—which takes time, and can lead to bugs or minor loss of functionality, but which is essential when you need to compile on a system that doesn’t have access to that library, or when you suspect the library function might be sneaking in side effects that you don’t want.
To use your metaphor, there’s nothing incompatible with the Taboo Your Words game if you say something like “for the purposes of this discussion, let’s define ‘sportsball’ to mean an artificial group conflict et cetera”, and then proceed to use “sportsball” whenever you’d otherwise use “baseball”. Almost as compact as any text you’d want to bother with tabooing (in which category I wouldn’t place “I’m going to be late to work tomorrow”), and it still does the job of laying out assumptions and stripping connotational loading.
We’re not the first people to have invented this. There’s a famous anthropology paper that describes the elaborate daily purity rituals of the remote Nacirema tribe, involving dousing with a stream of hot water, rubbing the limbs with a semi-solid paste made from fats and wood ashes, et cetera, and without which the Nacirema quaintly believe that their friends would desert them and their lovers reject them.
The way the joke works in the Nacirema paper is that because the usual words for such things are not used, and instead are replaced by descriptions, the reader won’t understand what they are really referring to (at least not immediately).
Which supports my point that tabooing words can make something harder to understand.
The point isn’t to make a joke, it’s to put some cognitive distance between readers and the culture it’s describing, the better to apply ethnographic conventions. That does make it harder to understand in a certain sense (though not in the same way as cluttering a function with inlined logic does), but there’s a point to that: by using a placeholder without the rich connotations of a word like “American”, aspects of American life (and of anthropology) are revealed which would otherwise have remained hidden. If you don’t expect the exercise to reveal anything new or at least help you skirt certain conversational pitfalls, you don’t do it.
No one is suggesting that you expand random words into long-winded synonyms for no good reason, as if you were the nerdy kid in the worse sort of children’s TV show.
No one is suggesting that you expand random words into long-winded synonyms for no good reason, as if you were the nerdy kid in the worse sort of children’s TV show.
But people are glossing over the fact that there’s a downside to expanding words. “Taboo X” can be abused by dishonest arguers who want to make it harder for you to speak comprehensibly. “Taboo X” can also be used by well-meaning arguers who are nevertheless giving you bad advice because tabooing X helps one kind of understanding but hurts another.
You should not just automatically accede to all requests to taboo something.
If someone says “Taboo X”, they might be saying “I think you’re confused about X”, or “I think we have different definitions of X”, or “I think you’re using X to sneak in connotations”—all of which can be effectively addressed by, yes, tabooing X. That is going to take time, but so is continuing the conversation in any form; and debates over mismatched definitions in particular can be way more frustrating and time-consuming than any explanation of terms.
If you don’t think any of the above apply, or if you think there’s a more compact way to address the problem, then it’s reasonable to ask why X needs to be tabooed—but most of the time you’re better off just tabooing the damn word. Worrying about possible ulterior motives, meanwhile, strikes me as uncharitable except in the face of overwhelming evidence. There are lots of derailing and obfuscating tactics out there, many of them better than this one.
If your target audience is not listening in good faith, there’s no trick to get them to listen fairly. Either understand that your communication is only useful for silent bystanders, or stop interacting with the bad faith audience.
Because there are downsides to it as well as upsides, and in a particular case the downsides might predominate. Just because someone is not acting in bad faith when they make the request doesn’t mean that the request will do more good than harm.
“Trying to communicate is worth the cost” is subjective, so I don’t know if I could give an example that would satisfy you. But I would suggest imagining one of the situations where someone is asking it insincerely in order to make it harder for me to speak, then imagine that scenario slightly changed so that the person asking it is sincere.
Professor: Let’s continue our discussion of sub-atomic particles. Top quarks have a number of interesting properties . . . . Student: Excuse me professor, could you taboo “atomic?” Professor: Get out.
In this situation, I think it is clear that the professor is right and the student is wrong. It doesn’t matter if (a) the student is a quack who objects to atomic theory, or (b) is asking in good faith for more information on atomic theory. (a) is an example of bad faith. (b) is an example of sincere but not worth the effort—mostly because the topic of conversation is sub-atomic particles, not atomic theory.
I’m just having trouble understanding a situation where (1) question is on topic (ie worth answering) (2) asked sincerely, but (3) not worth tabooing a technical term.
In short, deciding the appropriate topic of conversation is difficult, but beyond the scope of the original article.
When the definition’s short enough to be used inline or there’s a connotationally neutral synonym available, sure. Otherwise, it’s more like rewriting a function instead of using a library call—which takes time, and can lead to bugs or minor loss of functionality, but which is essential when you need to compile on a system that doesn’t have access to that library, or when you suspect the library function might be sneaking in side effects that you don’t want.
To use your metaphor, there’s nothing incompatible with the Taboo Your Words game if you say something like “for the purposes of this discussion, let’s define ‘sportsball’ to mean an artificial group conflict et cetera”, and then proceed to use “sportsball” whenever you’d otherwise use “baseball”. Almost as compact as any text you’d want to bother with tabooing (in which category I wouldn’t place “I’m going to be late to work tomorrow”), and it still does the job of laying out assumptions and stripping connotational loading.
We’re not the first people to have invented this. There’s a famous anthropology paper that describes the elaborate daily purity rituals of the remote Nacirema tribe, involving dousing with a stream of hot water, rubbing the limbs with a semi-solid paste made from fats and wood ashes, et cetera, and without which the Nacirema quaintly believe that their friends would desert them and their lovers reject them.
The way the joke works in the Nacirema paper is that because the usual words for such things are not used, and instead are replaced by descriptions, the reader won’t understand what they are really referring to (at least not immediately).
Which supports my point that tabooing words can make something harder to understand.
The point isn’t to make a joke, it’s to put some cognitive distance between readers and the culture it’s describing, the better to apply ethnographic conventions. That does make it harder to understand in a certain sense (though not in the same way as cluttering a function with inlined logic does), but there’s a point to that: by using a placeholder without the rich connotations of a word like “American”, aspects of American life (and of anthropology) are revealed which would otherwise have remained hidden. If you don’t expect the exercise to reveal anything new or at least help you skirt certain conversational pitfalls, you don’t do it.
No one is suggesting that you expand random words into long-winded synonyms for no good reason, as if you were the nerdy kid in the worse sort of children’s TV show.
But people are glossing over the fact that there’s a downside to expanding words. “Taboo X” can be abused by dishonest arguers who want to make it harder for you to speak comprehensibly. “Taboo X” can also be used by well-meaning arguers who are nevertheless giving you bad advice because tabooing X helps one kind of understanding but hurts another.
You should not just automatically accede to all requests to taboo something.
If someone says “Taboo X”, they might be saying “I think you’re confused about X”, or “I think we have different definitions of X”, or “I think you’re using X to sneak in connotations”—all of which can be effectively addressed by, yes, tabooing X. That is going to take time, but so is continuing the conversation in any form; and debates over mismatched definitions in particular can be way more frustrating and time-consuming than any explanation of terms.
If you don’t think any of the above apply, or if you think there’s a more compact way to address the problem, then it’s reasonable to ask why X needs to be tabooed—but most of the time you’re better off just tabooing the damn word. Worrying about possible ulterior motives, meanwhile, strikes me as uncharitable except in the face of overwhelming evidence. There are lots of derailing and obfuscating tactics out there, many of them better than this one.
If your target audience is not listening in good faith, there’s no trick to get them to listen fairly. Either understand that your communication is only useful for silent bystanders, or stop interacting with the bad faith audience.
They can be dishonest, but they can also be well-meaning but mistaken.
If the listener is not acting in bad faith and the medium of communication is appropriate, why the resistance to taboo-ing? Or what Nornagest said
Because there are downsides to it as well as upsides, and in a particular case the downsides might predominate. Just because someone is not acting in bad faith when they make the request doesn’t mean that the request will do more good than harm.
Can you be specific? I’m having trouble thinking if situation where trying to communicate was worth the cost, but tabooing words if asked was not.
“Trying to communicate is worth the cost” is subjective, so I don’t know if I could give an example that would satisfy you. But I would suggest imagining one of the situations where someone is asking it insincerely in order to make it harder for me to speak, then imagine that scenario slightly changed so that the person asking it is sincere.
Hypo:
Professor: Let’s continue our discussion of sub-atomic particles. Top quarks have a number of interesting properties . . . .
Student: Excuse me professor, could you taboo “atomic?”
Professor: Get out.
In this situation, I think it is clear that the professor is right and the student is wrong. It doesn’t matter if (a) the student is a quack who objects to atomic theory, or (b) is asking in good faith for more information on atomic theory. (a) is an example of bad faith. (b) is an example of sincere but not worth the effort—mostly because the topic of conversation is sub-atomic particles, not atomic theory.
I’m just having trouble understanding a situation where (1) question is on topic (ie worth answering) (2) asked sincerely, but (3) not worth tabooing a technical term.
In short, deciding the appropriate topic of conversation is difficult, but beyond the scope of the original article.