On accuracy, understanding and the slow death of meaning

One of the things I have found myself to be cantankerous about in recent years is the correct use of terminology. In particular the terms brand, strategy and identity - all of which have been bastardised to a fine pulp of ambiguity. Even the industry pros awarded the loftiest social media accolades are preaching inaccuracies, simply adding to the swirling pot of nonsense. No wonder everyone is confused. Or are they?

Having been working on my own service offerings in recent weeks, I have found myself questioning whether accuracy now has to be shunned aside in favour of understanding. Strategy is widely seen as a plan, brand as a product or logo. People nod along. The conversation moves forward. Nothing breaks.

"Algorithm" = recommendation system. A precise term for any defined computational procedure. Now used almost exclusively to mean 'the thing that decides what I see on social media.'

But does it matter?
Does it matter if the use of terms like these is technically incorrect, if the understanding of them is growing towards one shared meaning? The research suggests it probably doesn't.

A 2024 study analysed nearly 300 million English comments across eight major social media platforms over three decades and found language getting consistently simpler and shorter across all of them. Not on one platform. All of them. Simultaneously. Linguists now broadly agree that social media spreads new meanings, and new misuses, at a speed that has no historical precedent. What once took generations to drift now takes months.

The Oxford English Dictionary, which traditionally waits ten years before officially adding a word, updates quarterly now just to keep up. Oxford's 2025 Word of the Year, 'rage bait', had tripled in usage in a single twelve-month period. A word that barely existed, now grown exponentially.

"Exponential" = a lot. Properly describes a specific mathematical growth curve where the rate of increase accelerates relative to the growing total. Now used to mean 'quite a big increase.' A 30% jump gets called exponential. It almost never is.

Sorry, I digress…

I am asking this question to myself more than anything. It irks me to use terminology incorrectly. 'That's wrong! That's not what that means!' echoes through my brain when I read someone state strategy as a plan, or a brand as a product. If the majority think it does however, does it really matter? Has mass understanding actually rewritten the meaning of the term?

I think the honest answer is: yes, it has. And no, it doesn't matter, not in the way I used to think it did. The P.S. at the bottom of this piece says it better than I can up here, but the short version is this: when enough people use a word wrongly for long enough, they aren't wrong anymore. The meaning has simply moved. Language doesn't care about my feelings or what once was.

As someone who works with organisations on strategies which ultimately make them more understandable and appealing, my focus probably needs to shift toward understanding over accuracy. A client's perception in the market, what some might loosely call their 'brand' (ok, that was painful; a brand is someone else's perception, not a product or company!), is going to grow faster if it's understood than if it's accurate.

There is a broader lesson in this for anyone working in strategy or marketing. Markets do not reward technical accuracy; they reward shared understanding. The companies that gain traction are rarely the ones describing themselves with perfect accurancy. They are the ones who can explain what they are in language the market immediately recognises and repeats. Accuracy may satisfy the strategist, but comprehension is what moves behaviour. In practice, the most effective positioning is often a deliberate simplification rather than a perfect definition.

I guess the hook needs to land first. Education into the finer points can come later.

When I run workshops, more often than not I start with a 'just so we're on the same page' section, which aligns everyone onto the correct terminology and meaning, so that over the weeks and months we work together we all know what we're actually on about. Marketing doesn't have that luxury. It's more about leveraging the mass understanding than pushing a narrative that, albeit correct, doesn't resonate and gain traction.

"Irony" = coincidence or bad luck. Irony requires an outcome that is meaningfully contrary to what was expected, often with a layer of significance. No matter what Alanis Morissette says, rain on your wedding day is just unfortunate. A fire station burning down is ironic. Most things people call ironic are just surprising or unlucky.

Next time I am in a situation where a client markets something that is imprecise, but broadly understood, I will ask them: what's more important to you? I reckon the CMO will say understood. The CEO will say accurate. And the FD will ask what's cheapest?

Language does not wait for the people who know how to use it correctly. It moves at the speed of the people who use it most and those people have already voted. My job, and I'm saying this as much to remind myself as anything, is to meet them where they are, use the language that opens the door and then do the real work once I'm inside the room. I guess the terminology masterclass can wait until we've shaken hands.

Accuracy explains things correctly. Understanding moves things forward.

P.S.
"Factoid" = small interesting fact. Norman Mailer coined it to mean something that looks like a fact but isn't true, a piece of unreliable information repeated so often it becomes accepted. The word now means the exact opposite of what it was invented to describe. Which is itself a perfect demonstration of everything above. Mass use didn't just shift the meaning. It inverted it entirely. And nobody's going back.