Ben Schott

I mean, one of the quick ways is ask different families, what do they call the TV remote control?

So often there will be like a word that people use for the remote that is different from, you know, family to family and across the country.

And in Britain, you know, whether you have tea or supper or dinner depends on your class and where you are in the geography and what time it is.

So there are all sorts of private words and terms that people use.

So Wittgenstein, because obviously he had to pop up, had this theory of the picture theory of language.

So he's a philosopher who wrote about the theory of language.

And he had this great quote and he said, the limits of my language are the limits of my world.

And he was positing the idea that language sort of constricts and defines how we think and communicate.

But the limits of my language mean the limits of my world actually is interesting because it also means that language defines our world.

So how we communicate about our job

really explains how we do our job.

So, for example, understanding the language of, say, sommeliers or fox hunters, small groups of people across huge parts of society, it's a way of diving in.

It's a shortcut to understanding.

No.

And I think if you worked in one of these places, pretty soon, you know, you would join the gang.

So, you know, it's not necessarily to keep people out.

I think it's a way of creating a kind of esprit de corps, creating a kind of in-group that we all do.

And, you know, reality TV editors have their own terms because it's just easy.

For example, they call it one of the terms they use is the chicken count.

So the chicken count is you come back from a commercial break and you have a quick chicken count.