Every once in a while you’ll get a reminder (from a reader, customer, patient, client) that a single word can tell a story.
Quite often, that story is a negative one.
An industry standard term, or corporate jargon, will come across as unclear. The person will think you or your company uses that word because you are trying to hide something.
For example, a doctor could easily be misunderstood if he asks a patient, “Have you had any exposures recently?” Exposures? There are any number of unpleasant stories that word can tell a patient who doesn’t immediately know what the doctor means by that.
If, say, a corporate executive tells front line staff that they are working on creating swim lanes for their department, they likely will be completely confused and not understand that story at all.
I like words that tell fun stories. I think “kerfuffle” is my favorite word of all.
Of course, ultimately, the words you chose tell a story about you.
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