Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Pecha Kucha 6/7: Words Need Context


Slide 6

This is the neighborhood where I grew up as a kid. Well, it's really more limited to the area in the blue square. Really, it's the houses and the alley that's outlined in red. The word "neighborhood" worked just fine when I first said it, but once I defined it in detail, the original use seems incorrect and ambiguous.

Slide 7


Other words, like "Culture," we accept in most conversations when it is used, but the actual definition is quite complex, and it's actually changed significantly in meaning over the last couple of centuries. How many people are enough to form a culture? An entire country? A tribe? A corporation?

And can an individual represent a culture? Suddenly the word itself has no borders, no Form. With too much scrutiny and not enough context, the meaning eludes us.