It's the start of 2016 as I write this and all the grammar
and taxonomy geeks are posting their top "10 most misused words"
posts. There are some great ones, but I have yet to see one of my favorites:
agnostic vs. ecumenical.
Ecumenical is a not-often used word, but agnostic must have
come into vogue at least 10 years ago if not more. I remember using it often
during my time in the software business when we talked about how our software
was "platform agnostic." Theoretically meaning that it would run on
any platform. I did say theoretically.
About a year ago, while I was working with one of my
clients,* I said something about the piece needing to be "technologically
agnostic." He said, "You mean ecumenical." I said,
"Huh?" Actually, I conceded his point rather quickly, not because I
thought he was right, but because my clients pay my bills.
After that meeting, though, I quickly looked up the term to
see if he was, indeed, correct. He was. Well, sort of.
According to Merriam Webster's online dictionary, an
agnostic is:
1: a person who holds the view that
any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly :
one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2: a person who is unwilling to commit
to an opinion about something <political agnostics>
My client's contention was that agnostic is only a religious term, and the first
definition given by Merriam Webster is clearly a religious one. The second is
not, but since my day job involves committing my client's opinions to paper (or
pixels, anyway) it's not a very suitable definition.
Now, before I looked it up, I would have guessed that
ecumenical was only a religious word. It just sounds like one, doesn't it? But
Webster gives the following definitions:
1:
worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application
2a :
of, relating to, or representing the whole of a body of churches b :
promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation
The first definition, usually the most common one, is not
religious. And, in the context of the white papers I write, it is the more
appropriate.
It's also interesting to note that neither term has a
distinctly religious origin. Both come from the Greek:
Agnostic - agnōstos unknown, unknowable
Ecumenical - Late Latin oecumenicus, from
Late Greek oikoumenikos, from Greek oikoumenē the
inhabited world, from feminine of oikoumenos,present passive
participle ofoikein to inhabit, from oikoshouse
At the end of the day, I might have reminded my client that
just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is the meaning of a word. And,
meaning can change as quickly as the height of one's hemlines. Of course, I
didn't tell my client that. I just vowed to stop using the word agnostic while
in conversation with him. Sometimes, having a full slate of projects is more
satisfying than being right.
MJ
*During the day, I write white papers and blog posts for
high-tech businesses.
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