Shakespeare once wrote "A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet" in his immortal work Romeo and Juliet. The sentiment that line evokes is wondrous, however it is often untrue in real life. Names do matter a lot.
We see this all the time in the press; businessmen that are considered praise-worthy are called "entrepreneurs", while those whom are less well regarded are referred to as "moguls" or "barons". In the abortion debate, those who feel it should be illegal do not call themselves "pro-no-choice", they call themselves "pro-life", while those who support it being legal do not call themselves "pro-death", it's "pro-choice".
The same applies in the corporate world. Clerks are no more clerks, they are "admin professionals". Salesmen are "sales executives", repairmen are "maintenance engineers", and the list goes on. Prostitutes are now "sex workers", as I once read in a newspaper to my great delight.
Yet such use of names can lead to unforeseen and undesirable consequences too. One of my clients in a prominent company once told me that the company made a decision to convert all administrative staff to management roles, even though actual pay and powers remained the same. Once that was done, they were no longer eligible for claiming overtime. Quite an insidious move I thought. Another example is that in certain countries, electricians and other technicians are referred to as engineers, leading young people to believe that engineering is a rather "unglamorous profession". This causes fewer students to enter the engineering field, thus perhaps having a negative impact on the scientific development of the nation.
So we must be very careful when considering names and terms. I would hate to wake up one day and see beggars titled as "monetary collection specialists".
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