What We Could Do
"Society is not some grand abstraction, my friends. It’s just us. It’s the words we use, which are the thoughts we have, which determine the actions we take." - Umair Haque
Our mission is to improve the world by improving the language we use.
Did you know that most banks have built their core technology with a programming language called COBOL which is over 60 years old? This is one of the reasons that banks are slow to innovate. This language was a big driver of progress in the 1970s, but now the continued use of COBOL prevents progress. It's too expensive for banks to switch to a modern language, so they just don't.
In a similar way, most of the words that currently dance out of our mouths were born many years ago, in a different era. These words became popular in part because they were well-suited to thrive within the regressive power structures of the past. Many of these words are not necessarily the right language for the present, or the future. Nevertheless, they persist, keeping our culture anchored to old ways of thinking. It should be no surprise when our use of outdated language results in our world grinding its gears and struggling to leap forward into a more beautiful future.
For example, our society fights between capitalism and socialism. These words have had many mutations of meaning over the course of a couple centuries. Their true meaning lives in the past. Neither term does a good job of describing what we need in the future. We need a new system. A new -ism for the future. But we can't very well build that until we have language to properly describe it.
Today we must describe the world we want. But when we use legacy language, our calls for revolution are self-sabotaged even before they escape from our tongues.
The nice thing about language is that, to the extent there have been gatekeepers, they are losing control. Did you know that the word "adorbs" is in the dictionary? So is "gaydar." And "badassery." And "chillax." The government doesn't really control language. Neither do corporations. We do. If enough of us decide to stop using one word and use another word instead, language simply changes. We can just speak new words into existence, if we all do it together.
We Could Say is an experiment in aggregating people who want to define the future of language. We want language to be progressive, creative, impactful, educational, empowering, and—whenever possible—hilarious. After all, if our version of language is fun to speak, more people will speak it.
Not only that, but we want to leverage the power that language has to change the way people think. New words can reframe the meaning of just about anything, and help people better understand how to solve our most important problems. For example, I believe that the climate crisis is the most important issue in the world (obviously). Naturally, I might tell a friend that we need to decarbonize our economy. If my friend knows that word, they will understand that I mean we need an economy powered by energy that doesn't come from burning carbon-based fuels. But for someone unfamiliar with the word, it sounds like "carbon" is the villain. The word "decarbonize" implies that we need less carbon.
Of course, the reality is that carbon is not the villain, and it is a foundation of all life. Carbon is just as much the solution to the climate crisis as it is the problem. Carbon is just in the wrong place. We put too much of it into the air, and we need to move it back into the soil, and into rocks (using agricultural techniques, or olivine weathering, for example). We need to "recarbonize" our soil. Carbon—in the right place—is one of the most beautiful and promising solutions we have to this problem. So we have an opportunity to switch from saying "decarbonize" to saying something like "defossilize." We don't need to kill carbon. We need to "bring it back to life," as my friend Amanda Joy Ravenhill says. More thoughtful word choices can help people understand the world more clearly.
This project aims to find opportunities like this, where a better word can convey something more impactful, or more positive. We want to say words that prompt the right questions, not the wrong questions. In the words of Noam Chomsky, "Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow."
If this is interesting to you, please welcome us on social media, so that when you see new language that you like, you can help amplify it. This is a kind of activism where social media is exactly the right place to focus. We don't need congress to pass a law. We don't need millions of dollars in donations. It costs billions of dollars for a bank to update their programming language, but we can update ours for free. We just need people to use and spread the language on social media, where others can see it.
But we also need to reach people who are different from us, and who won't see what we post on social media. That's why we will create some products such as stickers that can take the message offline. For example, let's say that our community comes up with a much better word for a toaster. I'm going to want to buy 10 stickers with the new name, so I can go to ten friends' houses and stick a label on each of their toasters with the new and improved name. The revolution will be mischievous.
I think that finding potential improvements to language is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. What's not as easy to find are brilliant people who would rewrite "as easy as shooting fish in a barrel" to be, "as easy as finding pinks on a flamingo." If you are this type of clever person, it's possible you may be a suitable addition to the private forum we are thinking of creating, in which a small group of us would discuss the merits of potential new words, and make the art that illustrates them. Let us know if you're interested in collaborating to help build the future of language. Word up.
Did you know that most banks have built their core technology with a programming language called COBOL which is over 60 years old? This is one of the reasons that banks are slow to innovate. This language was a big driver of progress in the 1970s, but now the continued use of COBOL prevents progress. It's too expensive for banks to switch to a modern language, so they just don't.
In a similar way, most of the words that currently dance out of our mouths were born many years ago, in a different era. These words became popular in part because they were well-suited to thrive within the regressive power structures of the past. Many of these words are not necessarily the right language for the present, or the future. Nevertheless, they persist, keeping our culture anchored to old ways of thinking. It should be no surprise when our use of outdated language results in our world grinding its gears and struggling to leap forward into a more beautiful future.
For example, our society fights between capitalism and socialism. These words have had many mutations of meaning over the course of a couple centuries. Their true meaning lives in the past. Neither term does a good job of describing what we need in the future. We need a new system. A new -ism for the future. But we can't very well build that until we have language to properly describe it.
Today we must describe the world we want. But when we use legacy language, our calls for revolution are self-sabotaged even before they escape from our tongues.
The nice thing about language is that, to the extent there have been gatekeepers, they are losing control. Did you know that the word "adorbs" is in the dictionary? So is "gaydar." And "badassery." And "chillax." The government doesn't really control language. Neither do corporations. We do. If enough of us decide to stop using one word and use another word instead, language simply changes. We can just speak new words into existence, if we all do it together.
We Could Say is an experiment in aggregating people who want to define the future of language. We want language to be progressive, creative, impactful, educational, empowering, and—whenever possible—hilarious. After all, if our version of language is fun to speak, more people will speak it.
Not only that, but we want to leverage the power that language has to change the way people think. New words can reframe the meaning of just about anything, and help people better understand how to solve our most important problems. For example, I believe that the climate crisis is the most important issue in the world (obviously). Naturally, I might tell a friend that we need to decarbonize our economy. If my friend knows that word, they will understand that I mean we need an economy powered by energy that doesn't come from burning carbon-based fuels. But for someone unfamiliar with the word, it sounds like "carbon" is the villain. The word "decarbonize" implies that we need less carbon.
Of course, the reality is that carbon is not the villain, and it is a foundation of all life. Carbon is just as much the solution to the climate crisis as it is the problem. Carbon is just in the wrong place. We put too much of it into the air, and we need to move it back into the soil, and into rocks (using agricultural techniques, or olivine weathering, for example). We need to "recarbonize" our soil. Carbon—in the right place—is one of the most beautiful and promising solutions we have to this problem. So we have an opportunity to switch from saying "decarbonize" to saying something like "defossilize." We don't need to kill carbon. We need to "bring it back to life," as my friend Amanda Joy Ravenhill says. More thoughtful word choices can help people understand the world more clearly.
This project aims to find opportunities like this, where a better word can convey something more impactful, or more positive. We want to say words that prompt the right questions, not the wrong questions. In the words of Noam Chomsky, "Language etches the grooves through which your thoughts must flow."
If this is interesting to you, please welcome us on social media, so that when you see new language that you like, you can help amplify it. This is a kind of activism where social media is exactly the right place to focus. We don't need congress to pass a law. We don't need millions of dollars in donations. It costs billions of dollars for a bank to update their programming language, but we can update ours for free. We just need people to use and spread the language on social media, where others can see it.
But we also need to reach people who are different from us, and who won't see what we post on social media. That's why we will create some products such as stickers that can take the message offline. For example, let's say that our community comes up with a much better word for a toaster. I'm going to want to buy 10 stickers with the new name, so I can go to ten friends' houses and stick a label on each of their toasters with the new and improved name. The revolution will be mischievous.
I think that finding potential improvements to language is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. What's not as easy to find are brilliant people who would rewrite "as easy as shooting fish in a barrel" to be, "as easy as finding pinks on a flamingo." If you are this type of clever person, it's possible you may be a suitable addition to the private forum we are thinking of creating, in which a small group of us would discuss the merits of potential new words, and make the art that illustrates them. Let us know if you're interested in collaborating to help build the future of language. Word up.