TAOS recently wrote an article on his blog about Buzzwords, and listed many words as such. He was citing Wikipedia, which in turn cited Buzzword Hell.

Well, I took his advice and investigated a little bit. There’s another word near Wikipedia’s definition of Buzzword, Jargon, which I think is far more appropriate for some of the terms tagged as buzzwords.

These are, to my understanding, the definitions:

Buzzword: words or phrases whose purpose is to impress audiences, or get people confused by not clearly stating something meaningful.

Jargon: unlike buzzwords, these are words used as a shorthand to name an idea for a certain group of specialists on a given field.

Having said this, I have to agree with TAOS when he suggests some caution when adopting these words, and even more when using them. People with knowledge on the field won’t get impressed. They may get pissed off instead.

Exceptions

On the other hand, it’s far better to say framework than a bunch of classes that I use or extend on every project because they accomplish a goal required by every piece of software known to mankind. So, there’re a few words I’d remove from that list:

  • Framework (you saw that one coming, didn’t you? ;) )
  • Paradigm
  • Web 2.0

References

A personal note to TAOS

You should’ve ended your entry with don’t buy anything unless it’s from RematesIT :)