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Last week I did an Earth Day talk called Words of Our Lives and it catalogued three dozen or so terms like fossil fuels that from a systems perspective actually have different meanings. After reflecting on that exercise it made me wonder what words in our culture don't exist but maybe should. For instance there is a Swedish word that's lagom which stands for enough or just the right amount we don't have lagom in the US cultural lexicon. Another concept is the future itself. We don't have an emoji that represents the future of the thousands of emojis you can find on your phone. There is no concept to represent the future in our materials.

Last Friday we released Nate's annual Earth Day presentation for 2023: a reflection on ~3 dozen common English words which are semantically disconnected from what they really mean - paired alongside more biophysically accurate terms. Building on that theme, this week’s Frankly is a thought experiment of which ecological and systems concepts do not exist in the English language - but perhaps should. All of this is to say, the semantics and connotations of our language are extremely powerful and have direct impacts on the way we think and act. Could shaping our speech to be more accurate, empathetic, and comprehensive cause our aggregate actions to do the same?

For Show notes and more: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/30-missing-words

To Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/wDLTkAad3rY