This past week I attended a session of the Anatomy of Design lecture series as produced by the Northern Ireland Design Alliance. It was a talk by Mike Reed of Reed Words titled: Giving Voice to Ideas.

Mike is what he calls ‘a creative writer for brands’. Or, to the rest of us, a copywriter.

It was a great talk about collaborating with designers in creating branding that includes words as well as some insight into the best way to choose words for design.

During the Q&A Mike was asked what he thought the difference was between the way words were used 10 years ago and now. His answer was that the biggest difference was that people were more aware of words impact now than they were then.

And the geekiest question in the world came into my head. I spent the rest of the Q&A agonizing over a) if I should ask it and b) how to ask it without looking like the biggest geek in the world.

In the end, I didn’t ask it. So I’m going to ask it here, where I can plan it and edit it, and maybe if I tag Mike in my Twitter of this post, he’ll answer.

In Robert Heinlein’s Future History Universe, in more than one story, word science is mentioned. PR companies and Advertisers have created a whole science around the impact of words, to the point that some words are consider too ‘loaded’ to be used. That their meaning and  context were much to manipulative.

Not necessarily words we think of as un-PC today, but other words that might have sub-meanings or context that can be upsetting. Or influential to buyers and the like.

I wondered if Mike thought we might be headed in that direction. Towards a science of the impact of words. Or if we already have it to some extent.

God I’m such a Geek.