Forget the Damned Box, Inside or Out

Words get used, then overused, then diluted, and then, finally, emptied of all meaning.

When I was coming up in the personal computer software industry, oh so many years ago, some software person came up with the phrase "User Friendly" to describe a software product. Suddenly, or so it seemed, every single software product was declared, by its producers, marketers, and sales people, to be "user friendly."

And those words ended up being a joke. Stripped of all meaning.

These days it’s "outside the box." Everybody, without exception, everybody is now thinking outside the box. That one, people, is done now. Stop using it. Whatever or wherever that box is, there’s nobody left inside it.

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