ABOUT

My goal with this site is to create clear definitions for complex terms, terms a lot more complicated than "chair." I want to dig into the universal concepts that we all intuitively understand when we use a word but that haven't been clearly articulated before. Some of the definitions will be fun, some might be controversial, and I'm sure I'll have to go back and revise some after thinking about them more.

If you'd like to see an example of how I approach definitions, here's how I might define "chair":

Chair: a seat designed for one person, to be movable and provide support

The switch to being designed for one person is key here, so that's a good part of the definition to keep. And now we've got the idea of "designed for" as part of it too. For example, if two people squeeze onto a single chair that was designed for one person, it doesn't stop being a chair. It's not how it's used or what it's capable of but rather what it was designed for that matters, so we'll include that as well.

Making these kinds of adjustments to include kneeling chairs and discovering that it means we also get to include bean bag chairs is what I like about exploring definitions. Most people would've probably agreed that the original definition of chair ("a seat for one person with four legs and a back") was fine, but then they'd also agree that bean bag chairs should be classified as a kind of chair. Our new definition, "a seat designed for one person, to be movable and provide support," solves this conflict.

In everyday usage, these kinds of things generally aren't a problem, but then sometimes there are arguments based entirely on people using different definitions of the same word. I've found that if I explore a term and really try to craft a good definition, I often discover an underlying logic to the idea that doesn't always come through in the dictionary version.

The site's tagline - "Communication is an attempt to achieve the same experience without the same observations" - captures what I'm trying to do here. By exploring definitions, I'm trying to help create shared understanding when we're using terms that might mean different things to different people.