Can a chosen definition be “wrong”? No. If you choose a definition, then you can define a sound or series of characters to mean whatever you want them to mean. For instance, if you wanted, you could declare that whenever you say “phloop,” you mean one of those little paper umbrellas that are sometimes found in Piña coladas. That would be weird, but it wouldn’t be “wrong.” But we suggest that there are at least seven ways a definition can be “lousy.” 

By understanding what makes a good definition and what makes a lousy one, you can better formulate your ideas, and you can better spot mistakes in other people’s arguments. For instance, you might be in a situation where you’re trying to define the essence of an idea you came up with or characterize the unique career role that you’ve designed for yourself. Alternatively, you might be struggling to understand a definition that someone else is using, and you want to diagnose why exactly you’re finding it confusing. The words we use are crucial to the success of the interactions we have, and it is very handy to be able to pinpoint when a particular word is making a conversation more confusing than it needs to be. So, here are the things that we think make for lousy definitions! 

1. Miscommunication

If you decide the word “dog” refers to cats, people are going to be very confused.

Similarly, if you’re talking to someone who uses the word “racism” to mean X (say, “an explicitly held and endorsed belief that some racial groups are inferior to others”), and you use it to mean Y (say, “any form of negative generalization or attitude to a racial group, whether it’s implicit or explicit”), your conversation is probably not going to go as well as you would like until you identify that difference in usage. For these reasons, good definitions shouldn’t reuse terms that people are already familiar with or have multiple meanings associated with them. A good way to avoid the latter is to clarify upfront what you mean when you’re using a particular definition if the other person might not know what you mean when using that word.

2. Irrelevance

If you define a “dooooog” to be a dog with more than five legs, you’re not going to find it to be useful for much of anything. Dogs like that probably do exist, but they are not something almost anyone ever needs to refer to. We want our definitions to aim toward the things we are likely to want to reference.

For instance, someone bothered to define the word “Rasceta” to mean the crease commonly found going across a person’s wrist. Presumably, there is some subculture where that is a useful word, but very few people will ever need to know that definition. 

3. Unnaturalness

If you define “dogephant” to include all dogs smaller than 10 pounds AND all elephants more than 8000 pounds, you have not “carved reality at the joints.” Because of mixing things that aren’t clearly alike, using this definition makes communicating more muddled than it needs to be.

Another instance of this phenomenon is our use of the word “selfish.” Sometimes people define the word “selfish” in such a way that it includes both “stealing money from someone” and “sacrificing your own life to save the life of ten others because you feel such a strong emotion of compassion for those people;” it’s about doing things that make you feel “good.” An alternate reading of “selfish” might be much more negative: it’s about taking actions which benefit you at the cost of other peoples’ wellbeing.

4. Opinionatedness

If you define “dogmor” to be “those dog-loving morons who somehow are convinced that dogs are better than cats,” then the definition imports both a debatable opinion and an emotional slant into its meaning, causing usage of this word to be infected with either or both of these things.

For example, the word “sissy” not only suggests that someone — usually a boy or man — embodies feminine qualities but carries with it a negative, insulting connotation. If your aim is to make certain people feel bad, then this might be a good strategy to take, though you might be being a jerk, and that approach doesn’t make for clear, unbiased communication.

5. Ambiguity

If by “dogdog” you mean anything that a dog can like, then your word is (1) hard to use and (2) hard to think about; dogs like a large range of things, and individual dogs also have distinct preferences!

The word “problematic” (when used without clarification) is another (problematic) example of a definition: the problem being referred to could be of many different types and could range from quite objective to just the idiosyncratic, subjective opinion of the writer.

6. Inefficiency 

If you define “doglegs” to be anything with the legs of a dog, and “dogface” to be anything with the face of a dog, etc., then you can talk about walking your dog by saying, “I just got back from walking a creature with doglegs, dogface, dogfur, dogheart, …” But this is a ridiculously inefficient way to talk about your dog! Some definitions make communication substantially more efficient since they compress lots of information you commonly want to express into a small package.

Consider a different instance of this: it is possible to talk about calculus without having a word that means “the derivative” (e.g., by always referring to “limits of functions”), but this is going to be a painful and inefficient way to think and communicate. The word derivative makes ideas in calculus much easier to talk about. 

7. Lack of precision

If you define “floofster” to be any animal with fur, then you will not be communicating very precisely when you say, “I pet my floofster this morning.” You may be saying something true (and rather adorable), but someone will not know if you were petting a dog, a cat, or something more exotic like a lizard wearing a fur coat! Ideally, we want our definitions to focus on just those items or concepts we are trying to communicate.

Similarly, if you say to your friend, “I’m feeling bad,” the ambiguity of the word “bad” makes it harder for them to understand what you’re going through. If you say, “I have a headache,” then it will be easier for your friend to help you. Even better, if true, would be to say, “I have a migraine.” 

So, no chosen definition can be “wrong,” but plenty of definitions are “lousy.” To prevent lousy definitions, you should choose definitions that:

(1) allow clear communication, 

(2) refer specifically to the things of interest, 

(3) carve reality at the joints, 

(4) don’t sneak in debatable opinions/slants, 

(5) are relatively unambiguous, 

(6) express more information in fewer words, and 

(7) allow us to be more exact and specific with our words. 

We hope you found this helpful!

This piece first appeared on the Clearer Thinking blog on March 2, 2021, and was published on this site on December 16, 2022.

For instance, two journalists may report on the same undisputed facts, while one makes those facts seem negative, and the other makes them seem positive, without either of them saying anything that’s actually untrue. Word choice does the hard work. Afterward, it’s easy to hide behind this lack of untruths, claiming neutrality, even though language choice strongly implied a particular conclusion.

But of course, if you are purposely making something seem bad or good (independently of the facts), you have an opinion, and you are potentially altering the reader’s perceptions of the facts. The facts, as a reader perceives them, are not divorced from context and implication.

Of course, it’s sometimes good to express an opinion, to call something out as bad or good. But when it’s done on purpose via word choice alone, it can be a sneak attack that hits us below our conscious awareness. It can determine our opinions about the facts without us even realizing it. And when done with sufficient skill and subtly, we may come away falsely assuming that the author had a neutral point of view, that they just plainly told us the facts.

Consider how many different ways there are to express the facts about these specific situations:

Situation A
(1) It is known that revenues will be the same as last month.
(2) Haiden explained that revenues would be the same as last month.
(3) Haiden said revenues would be the same as last month.
(4) According to Haiden, revenues will be the same as last month.
(5) Haiden admitted revenues would be the same as last month.
(6) Haiden could not deny that revenues will be the same as last month.
(7) Haiden confessed that revenues would be the same as last month.
(8) Haiden had no choice but to admit that revenues would be the same as last month.

Situation B
(1) An insider close to the situation explained that the action was premeditated.
(2) The action was premeditated, as Remy later informed us.
(3) Remy filled us in that the action was premeditated.
(4) Remy said the action was premeditated.
(5) Remy told us the action was premeditated.
(6) Remy claimed the action was premeditated.
(7) Remy was going around saying that the action was premeditated.
(8) If you believe Remy, the action could have been premeditated.
(9) Remy made the claim that the action was premeditated.
(10) Remy tried to claim that the action was premeditated.
(11) Remy wanted people to believe that the action was premeditated.

Situation C
(1) We learned that the allegations against Pat are entirely false.
(2) Pat explained that the allegations were entirely false.
(3) Pat said the allegations are false.
(4) Pat denied the allegations.
(5) Pat claimed the allegations were false.
(6) Pat would not admit to the allegations.
(7) Pat refused to admit the allegations.
(8) Pat is playing the part of the victim and telling people the allegations are false.
(9) Pat is still claiming the allegations are false yet hasn’t given us a shred of hard evidence.

Situation D
(1) Santana is sexually liberated.
(2) Santana has a preference for having multiple sexual relationships.
(3) Santana enjoys having sex with different partners.
(4) Santana has a variety of sexual partners.
(5) Santana is not choosy about sexual partners the way most people are.
(6) Santana is promiscuous.
(7) Santana is a slut.

Situation E
(1) We learned additional useful information about the story by talking to Peyton again.
(2) Peyton later added additional information that helped us better understand the story.
(3) Peyton told us more information about the story.
(4) Peyton’s original story wasn’t complete.
(5) Peyton had omitted information in the original telling of the story.
(6) Peyton had prevented us from fully understanding the story by leaving out information.
(7) Peyton did not tell us the whole story.
(8) Peyton left out important parts of the story.
(9) Because Peyton left out important parts of the story, we were misled about what had really taken place.
(10) Peyton misled us about the story.

This essay was first written on October 19, 2018, and first appeared on this site on October 29, 2021.

I know of 8 approaches to interpreting the U.S. Constitution (and its amendments). None is obviously correct; some are more popular than others, but all are, in some unsatisfying sense, an arbitrary choice we could make:

(1) What the authors believed their words were literally saying (for instance, by studying what is known about how James Madison interpreted his writing). Because that tells us what the documents were intended to say.

(2) What the authors were trying to achieve on behalf of our country by writing those words (for instance, by studying what is known about why Alexander Hamilton thought certain things should be in the Constitution). Because this takes into account the spirit, rather than just the letter, of the law.

(3) What did the ratifiers / those who voted to approve the amendments interpret the words as meaning? Because that takes into account the reasons why the documents were actually accepted as law.

(4) What those who first enforced each of the different terms of these documents interpreted them to mean. Because that tells us what the documents first actually meant in practice.

(5) What decisions in our courts most recently interpreted the words to mean? Because that represents the current theoretical state of the law (even though it sometimes changes). There are, of course, good reasons to think we should implement the law as court decisions indicate. What I’m referring to here is something different, namely, when one says that the “correct” interpretations of the Constitution are automatically what the courts have most recently decided they are.

(6) What most people today would interpret the words to mean, if the words are taken at their face value in modern English. Because this is what those words actually mean to us when we read them.

(7) Whichever method of interpretation listed above causes an interpretation most like what we wish the documents said, accompanied by us then arguing that this is always the correct approach to interpretation. This one is especially popular.

(8) Decide what we think the Constitution should have said, then try to find some interpretation of the words that at least sort of makes it sound like it’s saying those things.

—

It would be nice if the Constitution told us which of these methods to use to interpret its pages (though I imagine we’d end up just debating what THOSE words mean too).

It would be even better if we could decide which of these methods would actually produce better outcomes for our society. That’s unfortunately very hard to do.

To some extent, the choice for how to interpret the Constitution hinges on how much we value stability of interpretation (which makes the law more understandable and consistent) vs. achieving certain outcomes we desire (e.g., making sure there are strong protections for things that society feels should be protected). But this dichotomy is not sufficient to allow us to choose between all the different interpretative methods, in my opinion.

Usually, we either seem to treat the Constitution as though it is not ambiguous (a theory that’s unfortunately been falsified) or as though one of these approaches is the “right” way to do it, as though there could be such a thing as one “right” way to interpret an ambiguous document.

This piece was first written on March 20, 2018, and first appeared on my website on September 4, 2025.

After noticing a number of times that people’s feelings about formal credentials can differ dramatically and that this seems to impact their views on certain important topics, I’ve been working on defining a “credentialist” trait (or attitude).

In a nutshell, the non-credentialist/credentialist spectrum, as I’m defining it, captures how important a person thinks formal credentials are, as well as how they feel those credentials should influence who we should trust and who should express opinions (e.g., should only formalized experts comment on a topic, or is it good for non-experts to comment as well?)

I developed a 4-minute test to measure the trait, so if you’d like to find out if you are a “credentialist” or “non-credentialist” (which I define as being in the top or bottom 20th percentile of each trait) or find out your own credentialist score, you can take the test here:

https://programs.clearerthinking.org/credentialist_test.html

Here are simplified/extreme prototypes to illustrate the distinction (few people are as extreme as these prototypes):

*Credentialists* get annoyed when someone without the right credential is giving their opinion on a topic, are impressed by formal degrees (e.g. PhDs and MDs), do not like it when non-experts have their own personal theory about a topic, trust people a lot more when they have formal credentials, think its unlikely someone could get really good at a complex topic without formal training, think that non-experts should not contradict experts, would go to school to learn a topic if they wanted to get good at it, find it annoying if startup founders talk about disrupting industries they have not already worked in, tend to describe people in terms of their schooling and job history (rather than, for example, their personality), and trust the opinion’s of people a lot more if they went to an excellent college.

*Non-credentialists* think that it fine (or even good) to express opinions when you’re a non-expert, are not particularly impressed by formal degrees, don’t view degrees or certifications as a strong indicator of trust, think it’s fine (or even good) for non-experts to criticize the views of experts, are prone to teach themselves material rather than going to school for it, don’t mind startup founders attempting to disrupt industries from the outside, tend not to describe people in terms of their schooling and job history, and don’t view the quality of the college a person went to as a significant factor in whether to trust their opinions.

I measured the trait on a 0 to 1 scale, and on the 143 people I collected it for, it has a mean of 0.55 and a standard deviation of 0.16, with a pretty nice bell curve shape.

Interestingly, I found a very low correlation between credentialist scores and education [r=0.03], identifying as female [r=-0.04], and income [r=0.03], and little correlation with age [r=-.08]. This suggests that credentialist differences have little to do with demographic characteristics!

Furthermore, whether you are a credentialist does not even seem to have that much to do with whether you yourself have credentials, as responses to the question “I myself have substantial formal credentials” had a correlation of only about r=0.13 with the credentialist scores. It also has little to do with how ambitious people are, as responses to “I have highly ambitious goals for what I will achieve in my life” had a correlation of only r=0.07 to credentialist scores.

Of the 22 questions I tested people’s agreement on in order to measure the trait, the 2 most effective questions (in the sense that they correlate highly with the average of the other questions but don’t correlate very highly with each other) are:

Q1: It annoys me when someone without the right credential is giving their opinion on a topic (e.g., a non-doctor commenting about medicine or a non-accountant commenting on accounting)

[r=0.71 against the average of the other 21 questions]

and

Q2: I am very impressed by formal degrees (e.g., PhDs, MDs, JDs, etc.)

[r=0.54 against the average of the other 21 questions, yet a fairly low r=0.24 with respect to Q1]

The 22 questions I developed hang together nicely and point in generally the same direction. Basic factor analysis revealed only one main factor in the questions, and the question least correlated to the others still had a positive correlation of r=0.34 with the average of the other questions (which was “If I heard that someone had won a prize in their field, I would think very highly of it”).

Most people fall in the middle of this trait, of course (e.g., viewing credentials as at least somewhat positive but the lack of them not that negative), without an extreme viewpoint either way. However, here are some anonymized qualitative responses I collected from people at the tail ends of the spectrum:

Credentialists:

“I don’t respect people who don’t have formal credentials, and one of my biggest pet peeves is people–even really intelligent people–speaking about things they aren’t experts on. Just because someone is known, or even renowned in another field, doesn’t place their opinion on another topic anywhere above another non-educated person.”

“People with formal credentials have generally gone through a rigorous peer review process that demands a considerable depth of understanding and knowledge.”

“People who don’t have credentials have no business talking about things they know nothing about. That’s how misinformation gets spread, and misinformation is harmful to society as a whole.”

Non-credentialists:

“I think that people can have a valid voice no matter their level of formal schooling. The opposite also holds true: a degree is not necessarily representative of ability.”

“I feel that colleges have become scams. They are money sponges that make you pay for your own brainwashing. I value intelligence and how well-read someone is on a subject, and we don’t need a self-appointed team of left-wing experts to ‘allow’ us to do that for ourselves anymore. People with credentials have more money than sense and have been taught what NOT to think more than they have been taught HOW to think.”

“While I respect those who have worked to earn professional credentials, people who are self-taught oftentimes know much more about a subject than someone with an expensive degree.”

Note: designing this scale and writing this post is a very non-credentialist thing to do since I’m not a social scientist.

This piece was first written on July 21, 2017, and first appeared on my website on June 10, 2025.