Precision vs accessibility in natural language
The ambiguity of natural language is often a benefit: it gets us in the right neighborhood with parsimony. And it helps us to caucus around views that may not actually be as similar as our language makes it sound.
But one thing ambiguity is not good for is specificity. Sometimes we don’t want the broad, general, multiply-interpretable word. Sometimes we need a precise semantic package. In those cases we can use — or invent — jargon. But jargon is, by definition, inaccessible.
How might we get the best of both worlds — accessibility and precision?
I think we need new tools.