Change your language, change the world

My daughter has a friend who refers to her dad’s new partner as her “bonus mother”. And when she talks about her new sister, that’s her “bonus sister”. I love that. These words have such a positive ring to them.

When we hear “stepmother” or “stepsister”, we think of the evil characters in Cinderella. When we hear “Bonus” we think of something positive we are getting. Something extra.

We can say that an athlete lost the final, or won the silver medal. Same event. Different words emphasize different things, even if the subject remains the same. Our words give away what we value.

We can talk about “digital illiterate people” when certain people can’t use software. Or we could say that the software is “human-incompatible” when it’s not designed to work for everybody, regardless of their skills or experience.

We can talk about “Global Warming” or we can say “Global Heating”, a more accurate term, which is why The Guardian has been using it since three years. “Climate Crisis” instead of “Climate Change”.

We can talk about how a product failed, or we can talk about what we learned about designing good experiences. Edison famously didn’t fail 10,000 times, he successfully found 10,000 ways that don’t work.

The words we use determine how we see the world. So if we want to change the world, we can start by changing our language.