“The medium is the message” is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.
The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964. McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.
— Wikipedia
I have been impressed (or depressed) over recent years as a new form of the truth of these statements has become more and more prevalent. I’m not talking about the internet as a new form of medium, but about the use of language, or more correctly, jargon to portray meaning. While far from complete, theOfficeLife.com has a dictionary of business jargon that ranges from funny, to understandable, to simply ludicrous. If you run into a specific term not found there, try unsuck-it.com. The problem is often that there are common ways to say exactly the same thing that are clearly understood. And if saying them in normal, understandable words seems stupid and meaningless, then you should question how saying it in such a ridiculous way makes it any more intelligent. But instead these arcane terms are thrown around like beach balls at a rock concert. Why? I’m not entirely sure. Maybe they were created to impress someone. Or someone who did not have a good grasp of the English language just made things up when they couldn’t come up with a more direct way to say something.
