

The Curse of a Name: How to Kill a Good Idea - chadfowler
http://chadfowler.com/blog/2014/11/25/the-curse-of-a-name-how-to-kill-a-good-idea/

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cyanoacry
Six sigma is actually alive and well, and in my experience refers to a well-
defined set of methodologies for production efficiency. There are
certification bodies that run programs dedicated to it[2]. It might not be
necessarily intelligent (akin to the ISO 9000 quality standards), but it is a
real deal.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Six_Sigma_certification...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Six_Sigma_certification_organizations)

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rubiquity
Great post. I think good teams with talented, and most importantly
disciplined, people can still extract the meaning behind these terms. For the
mediocre companies and teams, these acronyms and terms are just lip service to
attract and fool employees.

Oh, and who could forget... The consultants! Consultants love love love these
words.

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ssivark
I'd like to see examples of the converse -- good ideas that were killed by
_bad_ naming. Not quite an objective measure, but I feel this might be quite
enlightening.

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peterkelly
\- The Cloud

~~~
yourad_io
> The Cloud

Quite poetic, how _that word_ , of all words, has come to have such a nebulous
meaning.

Another favourite of mine:

\- Hacker

I _so_ prefer (and identity with) the "tinkerer" definition, rather than the
popularly accepted "cracker/cyber-criminal" one.

I think I speak on behalf of all H^H^H^HTinkerers: we would like our fucking
word back now, please.

~~~
yourad_io
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hacker#q=define+hacker](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hacker#q=define+hacker)

 _hacker ˈhakə noun

1\. a person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.

2\. a person or thing that hacks or cuts roughly._

And only after you expand it, do you get under (1):

> _informal_ an enthusiastic and skilful computer programmer or user

...which isn't exactly it, either. Also, I seem to remember it "google define"
used to name the sources, but it doesn't seem to do so for this one.

Wikipedia is right on the money, though [1] [2].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(term)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_\(term\))

