Words to hear (and use) less - Happy 2020

I love this post! Thank you! How about "accountability" when it refers only to funders and not accountability to the populations we are working with?

It is good to see the words we use questioned a bit. It keeps us on our toes.

The word RESILIENCE has come up in context of funding applications and is creeping into many levels of discourse.

I note that the definition is about being put under stress and then returning to a still or stable position.

I picture it in my mind like at school we would make a noise with a ruler by having the ruler sticking out over the desk and holing it in place like a diving board then flicking it.  It makes a reverberating noise that fade with returning to stillness. 

Resilience is now used as a way of saying we are taking funding away or making it harder for you to get funding. So you must be resilient. Implying that after years of austerity you are going to just get the screw turned tighter and the devil take the hindmost.

I tend to resist a bit and when asked to be resilient in a formal patronising way I try to reply that resilience is just a holding pattern. We need funding to actually have a chance of going forward.

I say "stuff resilience" just enable us to do our job.

Don’t get me started on "commercial envelope" and all the rest

Warren - I really enjoyed your column below. You've done an excellent job of identifying the drawbacks to many commonly used words and providing helpful alternatives.

I love this post! It comes at the right time especially in our country and by extension the sub saharan Africa.

Thanks for this clever list, Warren.

Words matter and I agree that some of these are terribly overused, loaded and or a little too vague to be meaningful.

I am posting your list on my wall and hoping it will help me to do a better job this year of explaining what I am trying to say.

Happy New Year to you and the entire CI network, and thanks for the work you do!

Pat

Thanks a Lot for putting this together! i was so very happy reading this.

My words are:

"Artificial" Why not use "Machine" with reference to Artificial Intelligence!

"Automation" not sure what that means to us any more!

"Monitoring" makes it so third party for me yet organisations and individuals do not want to let go. There are other ways of doing it, Isn't it? Not sure of the alternative still!

more once get more time,

regards,

mira

Many thanks for yours with some thought provoking comments on ’words’ we often use without thinking through their implications
and ‘development speak’ confusion potential.

I have difficulty with ‘target beneficiaries’ and would appreciate hearing alternative reference to people whose lives are aimed to
improve.  Any suggestions please?

Many thanks!

Sherry

More words not to use

the disabled use people who are disabled

the homeless use people who are homless

the poverty stricken use people who are experiencing poverty

ecosystem use system I guess - is a new word being used to describe programs and services here in Canada

folks - really get used alot even though we are not that familiar with these "folks" - people works for me 

Words are meaningless without defined purpose and context. In internet and digital electronic worlds the utility of words are further narrowed.

This is great !

Instead of « audience » or « beneficiaries » we use « community actors » and « family actors ».

Instead of messages we refer to dialogue and rather than a message-driven approach we refer to a dialogical approach, inspired by Freire's focus on dialogue and problem-posing rather than banking.

Hope to see you in Marakesh.  We are doing a panel on « Grandmothers as a resource for adolescent health » and I am participating in another panel on « Grandmothers as a resource in maternal and child nutrition ». The attached diagram illustrates grandmothers' role across the life cycle, specifically in the Global South.

Bonne journee.........judi

At the end of the day, and having seen buzz words shift and change over 33 years now, I have learned that words are meaningless in the sense that it is our ACTIONS that really tell the story. Example, despite all the years of trying to shift social change work from top down/donor & external 'experts' driven, to stakeholder designed and driven, I still see mostly top down IEC messages and materials - at an almost near obsession level - in nearly all the programs and projects I've worked with. It seems to not matter that more humananistic language is peppered throughout one's proposal because as soon as the money pipeline starts flowing, donors start demanding unrealistic results almost immediately.

So while I agree with most of what Warren posted, it realy doesn't matter what someone calls these things, what matters most is HOW they work. Are they using human rights-based approaches and working in PARTNERSHIP WITH stakeholders (my preferred 'word' instead of 'target' or 'audience' or 'beneficiary' - all of which denote a passive recipient of aid)? Are stakeholders working together WITH organizations in a meaninful and non-tokenistic manner? If yes, then I don't care what it's called on paper. The old addage, "Action speaks louder than words" says it all!

Greetings everyone - many thanks for this conversation. 

As women living with HIV, we have done a lot of work on the uses of language. You may like to visit our webpage here, which is all about how language shapes the way we all feel, think, act and react. 

We find that the language used about HIV and about us can have a huge effect on policies, programmes and ourselves and how we are treated by others. 

With regard to 'target" (see above), we don't feel comfortable with this language because it is part of a whole range of militaristic language which we find deeply discomforting. The word 'impact' too is very militaristic and another word we try to avoid. Instead, we prefer to use the analogy of horticulture or agriculture, which also has the benefit of being less linear, less binary (life/death) and more cyclical and iterative - both of which are more connected to the realities of work with and in any community, our own included, to support positive change. See for example an article here about this.  

We agree that the word 'beneficiary' is best replaced by other words which are less top-down and more inclusive, respectful and equitable, such as the examples suggested by Judi Aubel. 

Language is so important for us all!

Thanks again for this conversation. 

warm regards

Alice

I have never liked the use of the term 'actors'. I know it is supposed to relate to people taking action but it is more akin to actors in a theatre production who are acting out roles rather than constantly contemplating, trialling, maintaining, rejecting or advocating for a specific behaviour.

In short people do not act, they engage in behaviours and that is the preferred term used in the international literature. We are in the business of behaviour chance not action change so lets stick with behaviours of beneficiaries or target groups or audiences of messages disseminated in our communication programs.

Best regards

Tahir Turk (MComm, PhD) - Senior Partner

Communication Partners International

Hello, the words I want to hear less is though provocative.The words: Chairman ( I prefer Chairperson), Squatter (Land users), People Living With HIV (as opposed to Persons Living With HIV).Thanks.Best,

Resilience - Yes of course this word has sometimes used in our country as project but the large meaning of it is differ as its expressed the ability to be happy, succesful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened.

Excellent thread, I'm really enjoying it.

On the Communication Initiative site, would it be OK to ring some changes on the word communication itself?  It is too often used to mean one-way top-down messaging.  Can we talk instead about discussions, exchanges, asking around, or whatever communicative acts are actually intended?

There is also a bunch of what I call "vector vocabulary" which is about how communication is supposed to work, especially in educational contexts  e.g. get it across, deliver, supply, like an arrow shot straight to the head, Anything like learn, find out, share, or even construct would be preferable.

Participation is another weasel word. It so often implies that WE have a plan, in which YOU are participating - i.e. it's not your plan. If we can't get to ownership, let's just have a chat instead of participation.

And can we add target group to the bin along with beneficiaries?  

Jane Sherman

Most especially to the Participation buzzword, which is mainly used as a tokenistic way of TELLING people that YOU have the plan that will SAVE them. And then we wonder why projects and programs fall apart once donor funding ends...How can one feel ownership over something foisted upon them?

Ed: Responds to Communication and Participation from Jane Sherman

Just wanted to add another word to the list.  My agency used to insist that our proposals should be innovative. What they meant by innovation was IT and social media.  In fact our most transformative suggestions went back at least a century to John Dewey (learning by doing etc.).  They were perfectly capable of using IT and social media but were still far too innovative for Management. We were never able to persuade them that learning does not depend on what people recceive, but on what they do with it.   

Jane Sherman

Dear all,

I find this debate very interesting and pleasing to know there are many others contemplating these aspects of development aid (if that would be the correct word to describe the sector we are in.

About words being meaningless...words remain a valuable way for us to communicate and share meaning. Considering the nature of the work done by NGDOs (mostly very sensitive with high impact on people's lives) and the source of their capital, they have a huge responsibility to be transparent and accountable. Clear communication is therefore important and using the right words can stimulate positive transformation of others and our understanding of development aid and the change we are trying to stimulate. NGDO's are mostly a kind of middleman between people who are facing a development challenge and others who can assist in some or other way, either with expertise or a form of capital. That is the nature of development aid, one people assisting another people. The middleman is needed because of the physical, language and cultural distance between the groups. Such differences require very clear communication to establish trust. NGDOs need to be expert communicators. Luckily today we have many alternative forms of media to help us communicate, like video and making use of proper information management systems (Ask me if I can assist with this, it is what my life has turned out to be about...information systems for NGOs)

I can't agree more that "participation" should be replaced with "ownership". There is a huge difference in that participation mostly implies no ownership. To participate in a play, song or project doesnt mean it is your play, song or project. And research has proven over and over that the more ownership those facing a development challenge has in the planning and implementation of a potential solution, the more effective and sustainable the outcome.

I especially appreciate the question around an appropriate alternative word for "beneficiaries". So far I picked up "partners" and "audience" being mentioned. Don't know if this was mentioned yet but I was wondering about just using "clients". It feels as if a client can have more say and ownership in the services delivered to them, depending on the type of services. Say for instance clients who hire an architect to plan their house. The clients decide what the house should look like, materials used, timeframe to build it, etc. In the end they have to live in it and they will own it. Here and there the architect will give some advice because he is an expert in designing homes. And, "the client is always right". You have to listen to them, and mold the product to their needs.

It is exciting for me to be able to participate here.

Thank you to the organizers of this space.

Hyman

My Dear Esteem Participants,

I have gone through the comments and expressions made on the subject matter from the beginning to date, everyone said and expressed him/her self clearly to the best of respective ability and perception. 

The different approach shows our diverse understanding and culture. I particularly respect and share the same thought with Jane Sherman and the detail analysis tabled by Khawajah just to convince the house.

Accordingly, the word communication said it all. For example anything thing that seeks to educate, creat awareness, share an information or to sensitize a given forum or target audience on Education, Health, Women, Children, Youths, community, democracy and tge Environment etc is all about Information; and the process of passing information to others is Communication.

Perhaps one may give an example of OAU (Organization of African Unity) which for decades lived to expectation but it was changed to AU (African Union) - to everyone Union is an outfit that seek to foster Unity amongst member state.

We may sleep over the above and see if the message is clear and tallied with objectives ahead.

Sani Malumfashi

In refining the language we use as communication specialists, it is perhaps helpful to considering the two main audiences we talk to. There is the fund-raising (the keep-funds-coming-in) side of our work... where it seems anything can be said in order to maintain support. At the other end of the spectrum is the front line of work in isolated communities where many people are pre-literate and use a localised language that has around 200 functional words. (In-between you could say are the participants in this discussion)

Each time we invent a new acronym or expression and trash an existing one (like behaviour change or target) at an International level... we have to appreciate it will take time for the new words to filter down. If we suddenly fill our questionnaires with these new improved expressions,  we should not be surprised if fields workers haven't yet a clue about what we are talking about. Meantime on the front line, the field workers are talking as best they can to the audiences they are trying to assist. They are using creative local expressions made up to convey 'human rights' in cultures which often do not have a word for rights in their language. They are miming, acting out, showing visuals and talking 'in local jargon' on health issues that can help save a mother and child's life. Skilled field workers use what ever language it takes to convince parents of immunisation or mothers the value of other preventative health measures. And it may not be the same from one community to another.

The issue of jargonizing and the refining of usable and non usable words is however applicable to the other end of the communication spectrum. At the donors end (and I include government funding in this) there is now a lot of competition among agencies for funds. This has brought about a natural effort among NGO's to highlight their brands and identity. What better way to do this than to think up new more inclusive expressions, while trashing the old ones at the same time. The fickle world of donor contributions seems to work along marketing lines. Create an importance for your voice on these issues.... do what field level workers do... talk to bosses/donors in a language they understand and want to hear.

Development speak has been changing for years, not only by the will to communicate more effectively, but to make new voices heard. In the end it is a challenge for communication... and not just in monitoring linguistics. Both ends of the spectrum use what ever words and deeds it takes to be understood... and be supported by others. The front line has changed significantly in terms of scale. The donor end changes regularly in terms of issues... and we as development communicators navigate the in-between.

George McBean

Former Head of UNICEF's Graphics and Animation Section NYHQ

Dear all

The phrase "Best Practice" is my personal bugbear. Indeed it makes me shiver.  It may be that in a particular context at a particular time there might be a best thing to do, but still you never know. However, short of that the concept is colonising, arrogant and dangerous. "Good practice" is better but may carry the same danger if just used as a substitute.

I suspect that the Best Practice notion comes from the western managerial corporate world working in a globalised business context where models and practices are standardised, cloned and inserted into any context, regardless. But the much more complex, invisible and messy nature of poverty, oppression and marginalisation are unlikely to yield to any imported best practice recipe.

Indeed, if there is a best practice model that should be sought it may be found in the people already, as indigenous knowledge, latent and unrecognised, waiting to be surfaced, valued and strengthened. Doing that is good practice.

Warmly

Doug

Doug Reeler

Development Practitioner

Tamarind Tree Associates and the Barefoot Guide Connection

www.tamarindtreeassociates.co.za   www.barefootguide.org

"Leaders must reclaim the very thing our culture has so casually given away:

Time to think together and learn from our experiences. Without question,

this is the most critical act of leadership. It is how we restore sanity and

possibility to our work within our sphere of influence. It is how we work

with the dynamics of living systems and use our intelligence in life-preserving

ways as all other species do."

 
Margaret Wheatley, "Leader to Leader", 2017

I also find words from "market research" very annoying like "leveraging"  or "drivers" or economics like "demand side" or "supply side".

And donors keep making us leave out words like they may not want us to use NGO instead want CSO but if its taken 20 yrs to get communities to understand NGO its going to be another 20 more to explain CSO and then what's the difference.

In India jargon is so important - how do we get rid of it ?

Hi

I would like to echo the comments by Alice Welbourn - and to acknowledge that UNAIDS guidelines also reject at least the word 'target' in relation to people (rather say tailored programmes etc). Yet, in policies, plans, strategies etc the word target continues to be used by governments and the UN itself again and again. Reviewing existing and draft national strategy documents on HIV, they tend explicitly to acknowledge the need for meaningful participation at different levels, 'community systems strengthening' etc, but the actual tone and language are still top down, one way communication (audience, beneficiary, IEC materials etc) that entirely reflect the reality of how the 'interventions' will be 'delivered' - also give-away terms.

Even terms such as 'empowering communities' actually reflect a top-down approach, albeit well-intended. We need to talk about finding out from individuals, groups and communities how best to assist them to empower themselves, while acknowledging that the underlying power structures and inequalities need long-term transformation.

Meaningful engagement remains lip-service without a commensurate change in mindset.

I think it is great that Drum Beat is running this forum and hope that it will generate greater awareness of how language really does reinforce a way of thinking and acting that definitely needs to change.

Helen Jackson, Consultant

Unfortunately, beneficiaries or participants or clients or other terms currently at play perpetuate the "us" vs. "them" dichotomy.  We should talk about people as people -- perhaps by the name of their village or school; perhaps we refer to them as girls or boys or students or colleagues -- but as long as we continue to see people as subjects we continue the development framework of us coming in to "help" them.  Another word on language, why don't we require ourselves to speak the local language of the people with whom we work?

Previously I had replied to Shari Cohen that “We have this seemingly ingrained habit of semantic modernization with the belief that with some new expression we can progress with enhanced understanding of issues and engage in processes better suited to our intended goals. That by itself is grossly insufficient. People internalise meanings differently within our respective cultures, and that aspect itself is rarely discussed. Regardless of what words we use, as you suggest it is how we think and how we work with people that is critical”.

In seeing the number of expressions, jargon and acronyms noted by fellow readers, it has become obvious that virtually all possible words have now been noted, thereby rendering any further reports as just blank pages!

But seriously, English is one of the most fluid, inventive and evolving languages, making it impossible to stop the swarming of new descriptors in our verbal and written forms. So as always, the predominant issue remains ensuring that whatever words be used, their meanings must be understood the same way by the people using them. And that is not simple: otherwise, within our own societies, with same or similar language(s), religion(s), education, culture(s) etc. there would not be the increasing need for lawyers!

I think the terminology thread started by Warren has probably finished.  But I was moved to put some of my favourite fuzzy terms  (in italics below) into verse.  

TERMINOLOGY MINEFIELD

All we need is simple knowledge

And enough participation.

To reach our target audience

With full communication.

Our grateful beneficiaries

Receive our tested messages

Through intersectoral channels

In calibrated packages.

Our purpose is behavioural,

Our motivations rational;

Our metaphors are medical,

Our innovations technical.

Our formative research predicts

That changes are attainable.

Our shining impact pathways claim

That outcomes are sustainable.

We know what people do and why

And how to change behaviours.  

Oh targets, come and sing and dance

To celebrate your saviours.

I expect the thread on terminology has finished.  But I was moved to write a verse about some of my favourite fuzzy terms (in italics).

TERMINOLOGY MINEFIELD

All we need is simple knowledge

And enough participation

To reach our target audience

With full communication.

Our grateful beneficiaries

Receive our tested messages

Through intersectoral channels

In calibrated packages.

Our purpose is behavioural,

Our motivations rational;

Our metaphors are medical

Our innovations technical.

Our formative research predicts

That change are attainable.

Our shining impact pathways claim

That outcomes are sustainable.

We know what people do and why,

And how to change behaviours. 

Oh targets, come and sing and dance

To celebrate your saviours.