Context is everything. You can use precise words (including topic-domain jargon) when talking with people who have some expertise in the topic, and who know the jargon in that technical meaning. EVEN WHILE laypeople are expanding and drifting it’s use into something much less precise, useful, or even meaningful.
And then people started just using it to mean any random thing, and it got harder to tell who actually knew what “Schelling Point” meant.
Who cares? You can still use “schelling point” to discuss coordination by unstated shared background knowledge, even if it’s ALSO used to mean any piece of common knowledge.
Who cares? You can still use “schelling point” to discuss coordination by unstated shared background knowledge, even if it’s ALSO used to mean any piece of common knowledge.
You can, but then it’ll be unclear whether you’re using the “common” or “true jargon” meaning whenever you could legitimately mean either. (In the OP’s examples, both the common and true-jargon meanings of “Schelling point” were potentially relevant.) Even if you build a reputation for always using the original meanings of words, there will be people who don’t know the original meaning, and people who don’t know of your reputation. Some people will misinterpret you unless you explicitly state “the Schelling point, as in the original sense of an unstated but agreed-upon point” each time you use it for the first time in a given context.
In short, having two words in the same semantic space causes misunderstandings and frustration. You can get around it by essentially assigning the technical term to a longer word (“Schelling point but, you know, the actual one” instead of simply “Schelling point”), but this has its costs. (See: how shorter words feel more fundamental. Calling the rapid-takeoff intelligence explosion “FOOM” was probably wise, naming “coordination failures” Moloch was probably the single most effective way of getting people to fight them, etc.)
Context is everything. You can use precise words (including topic-domain jargon) when talking with people who have some expertise in the topic, and who know the jargon in that technical meaning. EVEN WHILE laypeople are expanding and drifting it’s use into something much less precise, useful, or even meaningful.
Who cares? You can still use “schelling point” to discuss coordination by unstated shared background knowledge, even if it’s ALSO used to mean any piece of common knowledge.
You can, but then it’ll be unclear whether you’re using the “common” or “true jargon” meaning whenever you could legitimately mean either. (In the OP’s examples, both the common and true-jargon meanings of “Schelling point” were potentially relevant.) Even if you build a reputation for always using the original meanings of words, there will be people who don’t know the original meaning, and people who don’t know of your reputation. Some people will misinterpret you unless you explicitly state “the Schelling point, as in the original sense of an unstated but agreed-upon point” each time you use it for the first time in a given context.
In short, having two words in the same semantic space causes misunderstandings and frustration. You can get around it by essentially assigning the technical term to a longer word (“Schelling point but, you know, the actual one” instead of simply “Schelling point”), but this has its costs. (See: how shorter words feel more fundamental. Calling the rapid-takeoff intelligence explosion “FOOM” was probably wise, naming “coordination failures” Moloch was probably the single most effective way of getting people to fight them, etc.)