on August 5, 2025
As a ‘wordsmith’ – for want of a better term – I am probably a little obsessed with words and what they mean, and also how they can be used to (mis)lead people. You could say that’s the dark art of marketing and PR (read this article for more on that).
In real life, words often take on different meanings for different people.
In fact there’s a term for using common words which mean something completely different to the people that you’re really talking to – a ‘dog whistle’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)). It’s almost like a codeword.
But even words that are not overt dog whistles can simply mean something completely different to different people, especially ‘collective’ words that group things – or people – together.
That inability of people to finally agree what a certain word or phrase actually means is what props up a big part of the legal world, and goes some way to explaining why ‘legalese’ is such a long-winded way of saying something. But, for the lawyers, it absolutely must be as specific as possible.
Let’s have a look at one example word and one example phrase.
Example word: P*rnography†
In theory everyone should agree that anything that is p*rnographic should have some restrictions placed on who can see it. But how do you go about deciding if an image for example is p*rnographic? Maybe get 50 people together and show them the same set of photos. I haven’t done this by the way (yet), but with a sufficient variety of images I suspect you’re unlikely to get everyone agreeing on every image. I’d go so far as to say that there would be little agreement, and even less, as long as you were careful to select a cross section of ages, genders etc. in the survey group.
So if people can’t agree on a definition, how useful is the word?
Research back in 2019 on this topic†† using a panel of 38 ‘p*rnography researchers’ backs up this conclusion. Here’s what it said in the abstract…
A Delphi panel of 38 leading p*rnography researchers from a wide range of disciplines was asked about various topics, including the definition of p*rnography. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of two rounds of survey responses suggested two different and—at first sight—incompatible definitions operating. The first was “Sexually explicit materials intended to arouse.” The second was a culturally relative definition suggesting p*rnography has no innate characteristics.
It then went on to recommend…
…we should encourage researchers to choose which definition they want to use in a self-reflective way depending on the needs of the project, so long as they make it explicit and justify their decision.
Example phrase: Working families
This, as you may remember, was Kevin Rudd’s campaign slogan back in 2007 – ‘Kevin 07’. But what does it mean? And who does it include? As it turns out – logically – pretty much everyone.
- Does it mean that you have to be a member of a family? Biologically, everyone is.†††
- Does it mean that everyone in that family needs to be working? You could argue that, but realistically families including children who are at school or younger or in any form of education wouldn’t regard themselves as excluded by this phrase.
Maybe the only situations that would not be included in ‘working families’ might be retired people and adult families where no-one has a job. In practice the term would apply favourably to the vast majority of people, even people who fell into these two groups would probably still regard themselves as included, as part of a larger ‘family’ where at least a few members in gainful employment, or at least supportive of them.
A perfect political slogan – one that makes everyone feel included!
There are plenty more of these ambiguous words and phrases – I’m sure you can think of a fair few.
The takeaway from all of this is that, before you write anything, consider how your audience might misunderstand what you are saying due to a different perspective on your chosen words – and these don’t need to be words generally classified as ‘inflammatory’.
If you can come up with words, or a slogan or phrase that will appeal to almost everyone in your target market without upsetting anybody – fantastic. If you can’t, get in touch!
And …do you agree or disagree with my conclusions?
†we’ve had to add the * just in case web filters block or flag this word
††https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7058557/
†††you could argue that the word ‘family’ here implies a ‘nuclear family’ ie living together and would not include members of a family who may have passed away