van der Laan, J. M. "Plastic Words: Words Without Meaning." Bulletin of Science Technology and Society, Oct 2001 21: 349 – 353.

Taking as its point of departure the works of Jacques Ellul, Sven Birkerts, George Steiner, Uwe Poerksen, and others, this article explores the status of language in a technicized civilization. It is argued that language has devolved under the impact of technology, particularly in the dimension of vales and ethics. This diagnosis points to the way from which a possible cure may emerge (349).

This article is a great place to start if you think you may have some interest in Poerksen’s book, Plastic words: the tyranny of a modular language. I highly recommend Plastic Words. 

Other works cited in va der Laan’s article:

• Birkert, S. The Gutenberg elegies: The fate of reading in an electronic age.
• Ellul, J. The technological society.
• Ellul, J. The humiliation of the word.
• Postman, N. Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business.
• Postman, N. Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology.
• Steiner, G. Real presences.
• Stivers, R. Technology as magic: The triumph of the irrational.
• OED and Webster’s new world dictionary of the American language, 2nd ed.

The Steiner book is the only one I have not read yet.

I went looking for whatever I had written on this book, but it turns out it was used in a seminar I audited.  It is such a shame as I did not start out auditing this class.  But unless you were a party to the excitement, or are one of my good friends, you don’t need the details.  It just makes me sad when I think about it because all of the sources used in the class were very influential on me. <sigh>   I could still swear I had used Plastic Words in something, but I’m unable to find it right now.

Poerksen’s short work (116 pp.) is an exposition of a small class (2-3 dozen) of very powerful words.  These words are ones that we are all familiar with, and, in fact, so are most other nations.

"To my ear, plastic words heard now are in one respect comparable: they sound friendly, smooth, positive, and consensual, but, while not in themselves evil, they mask brutality. With a word such as "development," one can ruin an entire region" (6-7). 
Something to keep in mind as discussions on redeveloping New Orleans move forward.

Table of contents:

• Preface to the English Translation
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Plastic Words on Both Sides of the Elbe
• 2 Are Plastic Words a New Class of Words?
• 3 Plastic Words as Building Blocks for New Models of Reality
• 4 Experts as Functionaries Who Make Reality
• 5 The Mathematization of the Vernacular
• Appendix: Characteristics of Plastic Words
• Bibliography & Index

Poerksen’s gross characteristics for a plastic word are:

• A. Origin and Usage
• B. Scope
• C. Content
• D. History as Nature
• E. Power of Connotation and Function
• F. General Function
• G. Social and Economic Usefulness
• H. Time and Place of Dissemination
• I. Connection to Making Oneself Understood without Words (99-103)

Each of these has multiple facets, of course, but the "essential characteristics" as Poerksen says are the following:

• A. It originates from science and resembles a building block. It is a stereotype.
• B. It has an inclusive function and is a "key for everything."
• C. It is a reductive concept, impoverished in content.
• D. It grasps history as nature.
• E. Connotation and function predominate.
• F. It generates needs and uniformity.
• G. It renders speech hierarchical and colonizes it, establishing an elite of experts and serving as their "resource."
• H. It belongs to a still very recent international code.
• I. It limits speech to words, shutting out expressive gesture (23).

Abstract language allows the world to be planned, levels it out evenly, and makes it available to the drawing board. It contructs homogeneous and easily visualized spaces. It avoids sensuousness, diversity, and individual variation, and focuses on what remains when one gets rid of all particular cases. This is precisely how it opens up the world for exploitation.

At the same time abstract language serves to cover up reality. It prevents the imagination from reflecting on what actually happens to people. It ignores what they experience and what they feel, their life histories. The language of the overview leads to disregard of what is important. The seal of science or administration, stamped on the everyday by the expert, hides suffering beneath an inhuman objectivity. The expert robs the senses of their reality (85).

"Information."  Yes Virginia, major plastic word.  Poerksen’s discussion is on pp. 36-42.  I sure wish I could put my hands on the following article that I read back in Jan.:  Houser, Lloyd. "A Conceptual Analysis of Information Science." Library & Information Science Research 10 (1988): 3-34. 

Oh well, I found a post I made in May that has some of the relevant data that I was looking for: Bates….  Houser did a conceptual analysis of the first 15 volumes of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS) for several purposes not relevant here.  The main point I was looking for is that he found 695 definitions of "information science" in those volumes.  Now "information science" is different than "information," but there is no way that there could be that many definitions of a science if the modifier itself was reasonably clear.  695.  Six hundred ninety-five.

Oh yes, several more of the short list of plastic words are highly prevalent in our field, too.

Stop what you’re doing.  Go read Plastic Words, and if you don’t have time for a small book, go read "Plastic Words."  It may well entice you to read the book though, and you should.

Disclosure:  I personally know Jim van der Laan and Richard Stivers.  I respect them both very much, and consider them to be friends and mentors.  Dr. Stivers, in fact, wrote one of my letters of reference for grad school.  I have been in various reading/discussion groups with these gentlemen since sometime in the spring of 1999.