Pip: Boghoss’ Blog is asking HR professionals to look at the words they use every day — and wondering whether anyone actually knows what those words mean.

Mara: That’s the territory today. Laurent Boghossian has a piece examining how corporate language, particularly the term “soft skills,” can drift so far from its original meaning that it stops doing useful work. Let’s start with why precise language in HR communication matters so much.

Why Clear Language Matters in HR Communication

Pip: The question this post is really asking is whether the vocabulary HR professionals rely on is actually doing its job — or whether it has quietly become a kind of professional wallpaper nobody stops to read anymore.

Mara: The post names “soft skills” as the clearest example of that drift, and frames the problem directly: “everyone uses it, but few people necessarily agree on what it actually means.”

Pip: And that vagueness has consequences. If the people running HR processes can’t pin down what they’re trying to develop, those processes risk optimizing for the label rather than the reality behind it.

Mara: Right — the post spells out what actually lives behind that label: interpersonal skills, empathy, compassion, self-awareness, self-assertion, and human connection. Saying “empathy” instead of “soft skills” gives a manager something concrete to observe and work with.

Pip: There’s a quiet irony in an industry dedicated to understanding people reaching for the word that tells you the least about them.

Mara: The post makes a similar point about self-assertion specifically — it pushes back on the “soft” framing directly, noting that “expressing oneself authentically can require confidence, courage and firmness.” That’s not soft by any common definition.

Mara: And the argument extends to why HR processes sometimes fall short: when language becomes too abstract, it can pull managers away from the actual human behaviors they’re trying to address.

Pip: So the real ask isn’t just better vocabulary — it’s keeping the words tethered to the people they’re supposed to describe.

Mara: Exactly. The post closes on that note: the challenge for managers and HR leaders is “not simply to use the right vocabulary, but to ensure that the words they use genuinely reflect the human realities they want to understand and transform.”

Pip: Which is a harder standard than swapping one acronym for another — but a more honest one.

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Pip: Language that drifts from its meaning doesn’t just get vague — it starts making decisions for you, quietly.

Mara: More on what happens when professional vocabulary stays grounded in the next episode.

This episode has been generated using A.I by Laurent Boghossian himself (Source : Why Clear Language Matters in HR Communication)

“Artificial intelligence at the service of humanity. Not the other way around.“