Bioluminescence, Ayah (!)
My kid and I.
There are many words — no matter how many times people teach me, kind of hard to stay in my memory and will never come back every time I needed to use them. I will use any words that make sense (randomly pluck from the air) to me instead of the correct-ideal-designated words.
One of the words are bioluminescence. My kid introduced me this word 2 years ago — If I’m not mistaken he got it while watching Brave Wilderness, or Wild Kratt, or Doctor Binocs. So every time I see firefly, jellyfish or any other animals — I’ll say :
Hey look at that glowing creature!
The other one is S’more.
Oh you’re combining marshmallow and chocolate with cracker, looks delicious!
Well folks, I was raised with only Hup Seng cracker and biskut mayat, so what do you expect? 😆
Correct terms save me.
I just past my first decade in tech. industry one year ago. I started to aware that correct terminology give huge impact especially when looking for solution for the engineering issues I face. Correct keywords lead me to the better result(s) on search engine. Correct word in the question I asked saved my investigation and troubleshooting time, a lot. Based on that understanding (benefit of using “correct” words); I’m always trying my best to use the correct term(s).
Popular & widely used terms are always numero UNO.
There are many events — moved me away from above stand point of view. One of the products we currently managing is involving public users. Demographic-wise, baby boomers, gen. X and Y are main groups actively using our product. Our account managers and customer service team are extremely busy — especially when managing baby boomers. I learnt that the message will be exchanged faster every time we use the words that our users familiar with — to represent / address the action / scenario / item / problem they face. PICIT instead of tap. KOTAK instead of text area. BUTANG YANG BOLEH TOLAK instead of toggle. TARIK / TOLAK instead of “scroll down / up”. Link instead of URL / API endpoint. Web technology and mobile gestures are interesting topics and as the so-called IT professional / UIUX practitioner / product sensei; we’re always fighting our own demon — to use or not to use the correct terms; trying to balance between spread awareness / educate consumers and effective communication.
Luckily, expression doesn’t require all these technical & industry jargons, and it made me agree to what George Carlin said;
Everyone smiles in the same language.
