Phrase of the day
I’ve noticed a growing trend within companies to use jargon phrases such as “technically agnostic“. This particular phrase may be good or bad depending on your interpretation. The word Agnostic comes from two Greek words – “a” (meaning “without”) and “Gnostic” or “gnosis” (meaning “knowledge”).
Agnosticism (from the Greek a, meaning “without”, and gnosticism or gnosis, meaning “knowledge”)
So, one could read that a company claiming to be “technically agnostic” is actually “technically without knowledge“. Is this something to be selling to clients?
Date: 25 October 2007
Author: Russ Weakley
Category: General, News, Web
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“technically agnostic” is certainly wrong. “technology agnostic”, as in “without knowledge about the technology”, or even better “platform agnostic”, when referring to a particular solution, is probably more what they’re after…
I think a more accurate phase would be “technically impartial” – meaning that the company is not tied to one solution. This is how the phrase is often used.
I just hate the use of the word ‘transparency’.
It actually means ‘see through’, but they use it to mean ‘visible’ or ‘easy to understand’!
I whole heartedly agree with you Jez, my company tends to use ‘transparent’ a whole lot to explain the our actions are completely and utterly above board and easy to observe from the client’s point of view. It annoys the hell out of me!
On that matter, actually any enterprise term or phrase annoys the hell out of me, but at the end of the day, they sell the product to “technically agnostic” companies who become overwhelmed with this elite speak!
The term and its usage looks funny. On the other-hand, I the word “transparency” had lots of weight till recently. It means clarity on policies/projects/records etc. etc.
But these days it is being used by everybody and everywhere. As a result it has almost become a loose word now.
Wow, quite an insight! I was *just* reading a book on textual criticism last night where the author was talking about some eastern apologist who was first using the phrases “agnos” and “alogos” in a somewhat derrogatory sense (around 200 CE during the explosion of gnosticism). But I didn’t connect that with the common use of “technically agnostic”. It is true that people use “agnostic” when they mean “impartial” these days. Kind of like how people use “evolve” when they mean “adapt”.
I agree that “technology agnostic” may be a silly phrase.
In its defence, one could say it alludes to a religious agnostic stating “I do not believe in a God because I believe we don’t know enough to prove his/her existence.”
A technology agnostic company would say “We do not prescribe a technical solution to a client because until we’ve thoroughly examined their situation we don’t know enough (a-gnosis) to make that call”
A bit tenuous, I know.