Technically … No

By Jonathan Lam on 01/30/16

Tagged: the-homework-life the-homework-life-thought

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"No technology allowed." O the pain I feel! Without technology allowed, we wouldn't have clothing (and ma'am, I'm sure you wouldn't want to see us naked); we wouldn't be healthy and have flawless teeth; in essence, we couldn't exist the way we do now. I'm sure the countless teachers and librarians that had told us this hadn't thought of technology in the holistic sense that the term technology conveys. If they want us to put away our smartphones and laptop computers and tablets, they could explicitly mention "mobile computing devices"— although slightly wordier, it's also more specific and more correct.

In my world, it's not okay to generalize or be politically-correct (even when talking about politics). You have to be technically-correct. It's sometimes okay to be general in order to specify a broad range or to be "politically correct" to mention something in a kinder way, as long as it is very precise.

Another overused over-general term is "chemical." "Oh no, there are so many chemicals in this food!" Well, duh! (It sounds a bit childish, but I couldn't think of another term that conveyed its meaning equally well.) Everything is made up of "chemicals"! I'm made up of chemicals, you're made up of chemicals, the food you eat is made up of chemicals. If you've taken any biology course, a chemical is simply a substance relating to the study of chemistry. Chemicals make up the world around us, and the vast majority of them are out there to benefit us. The few toxic or dangerous chemicals that may exist in our foods— heavy metals, for example— are the ones to worry about. That word "toxic" or "dangerous" is not implied— it's important there. There are many other commonly misused chemistry-related terms as well.

And then there are the misused phrases. Or the simple ones that get spelled wrong all too often. And then there are others that are simply used all too often. A pet peeve of mine is when I hear "literally" or "practically" used incorrectly: no, it is not actually in a literal sense! You're wrong! Or when people spell "there," "they're," "their" or "affect," "effect" incorrectly: homonyms aren't synonyms!

It was actually interesting ranting about this topic. Maybe I'll try it more often…