Yesterday I wrote about ‘Blursday’ as one of ‘Oxford’s Defining Words Of 2020’. That got me thinking about words, in general. And I came up with my top 10 words that. need to go away (or at least change) in 2021. Okay, there are 10 words, but they make up 4 phrases. So here they are (and why):
‘Bad Actors‘
You can’t listen to anything about any current event (not just technology, but really anything) where this term is not thrown around. You know what we used to call ‘bad actors’? Jerks (or something saltier)
‘Great question!…glad you asked’.
The interviewee says condescendingly to the interviewer. Honestly, how many thousands of times have you heard this?. There are just too many obvious, sarcastic comments to mention on why this phrase just needs to go!
‘BOPIS‘
(Buy Online Pick-up In Store). Please call it ‘Click and Collect’. They had right in the UK way before we did.
Walled Gardens‘
“The term “walled garden” dates back to the times of pioneering US telecoms. Walled gardens in AdTech refer to Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, which are often written as GAFA or FAGA. Google and Facebook are known as “the duopoly” due to their large market share of online advertising spend”. (Clearcode)
But with the impending deprecation of the first party cookie, ‘walled gardens’ seem to be cropping up everywhere.
Why should this term go away-… If for no other reason than it does not conjure up the image of a connected network of sites sharing data safely and securely. Instead, in conjures up the image of where nasty things happen on many episodes of Law and Order SVU. (Okay, I have a dark side).
