Semantic Stretching

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The concept of "Semantic Stretching" was first researched at Stanford and Yale and popularized by the Heath brothers in their ground breaking book Made To Stick

In short, the idea is that at some point a term becomes so over used that it no longer has the strong meaning it used to have before. This is similar to something becoming a cliche, but more dangerous in some ways. Semantic stretching is more about a strong or impactful word remaining useful or important but not within the same context.

Research conducted at Stanford and Yale shows when associations to certain terms are drawn repeatedly- sometimes with precision, sometimes with crudeness- the effect is to dilute the power of the terms and their underlying concepts. When everyone paints with lime green, lime green no longer stands out. This process - exploiting terms and concepts for their emotional associations - is a common characteristic of communication. People tend to overuse any idea or concept that delivers and emotional kick. The research at Stanford labeled this overuse as Semantic Stretch. 

Note: This book comes with a 5 star recommendation from Russell Wright, co-inventor of the Theme Zoom natural language processing application.)

Also See Network Empire

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