

What's the Matter With Metadata? - selamattidur
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/06/verizon-nsa-metadata-surveillance-problem.html

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wam
Whenever something happens that people want to explain away, some new
technical term pops out into the public discourse. It's impossible to predict
what the next phrase will be, but the pattern is consistent and it's always
interesting.

You take a phrase with a legitimate meaning in a technical context and say it
over and over in a non-technical context. It makes everything slippery. People
have to jump through mental hoops to integrate the new terminology, and you
get all this wiggle room to nitpick whether some argument applies to it. You
can claim it means something technical and specific if you need to, and
continue to use it vaguely when you want it the other way.

I don't have a ready list of the most recent ones I've noticed, but "weapons
of mass destruction," "enhanced interrogation," and "enemy combatants" are
some good oldies. "Wardrobe malfunction" too.

Anyway, I never would have guessed "metadata" would join the ranks.

