I'm not sure I know what fidelity is.

I’ve reformatted New Nouns a bit. Let me know what you think.

I've been digging into best practices for this newsletter and have reformatted things a bit. If you’re a regular reader, hit reply and let me know what you think. Even if you hate it. Apparently all feedback is good feedback even if it makes you cry.

⭐️ The Nouns of January 1, 2025

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I’m not sure I know what fidelity is.

Context is everything.

When you learn a new language or a new skill as an adult, there is a system. A methodology to follow.

Si means yes.

Put your fingers on these strings to play the C chord.

But this isn’t how people naturally learn, and anyone who has learned another language will tell you that they had to actually live there to finally pick it up.

And it isn’t because the teachers are better there, or the vocabulary lesson is structured more effectively. It’s because the language has context.

It’s why every single one of you reading this email right now can think of someone who speaks Spanish who has lived in a Spanish-speaking country, or at least studied abroad, and every one of you can think of someone who took 10 years of Spanish in the classroom and still can’t speak the language comfortably.

Can you imagine a 10-year-old in America who knew some vocabulary words and phrases but still couldn’t speak English very well?

I listen to a lot of lofi hiphop while I write.

No words. Good background noise.

As I was staring at those words in the little spotify player thing today, I realized I don’t think I know what they mean.

I know lofi means low fidelity.

And low is the opposite of high. Or a small amount.

But I’m not really sure what “fidelity” means.

I know the ‘70s record player cabinet I have is sometimes called a hifi.

Which I can only assume is short for “high fidelity”.

And I know High Fidelity is a movie.

And I know WiFi is a play on lofi and hifi.

I sound like an idiot.

Look, I’m not confused. I get it.

I know what it means.

But if you asked me to define the word, I don’t think I would nail the dictionary definition.

Because the word has always been in context, and the context was far more important than the word.

We take so many things at face value, not because of what they are, but because of what their context is.

When was the last time you looked at a shampoo bottle?

Apparently, they are all ‘paraben free’.

I guess I’ll be the idiot in the room to admit I have no idea what a paraben is.

Wax?

That’s the only other context I have.

But in that case, I thought it was more of an adjective that described the wax. If the shampoo doesn’t have any parabens, I guess it is a noun in its own right.

I’m glad to finally pay off the name of this stupid newsletter.

Again, I think parabens are bad because they were presented in a context where they seem bad.

Are there parabens in other stuff?

Years ago, I was presenting work to a client via a zoom call. Or whatever we used pre-covid when no one knew zoom was a vital part of our culture yet.

It was just me and my chief creative officer on the call.

We had a giant, 50-page deck of creative concepts that we had been working on for weeks.

This was our chance to really wow them with great work.

We open to the first page and give some background to set the stage.

We quickly flip to the next slide- the first real slide of content after the cover page- and the client jumps in.

“Can you just skip to the good ideas so I don’t have to see all of this?”

Oh shit.

I’ve never seen a more confused look than the one that came across my boss’s face.

While he tried to manage the relationship and get us back on track, I quickly did a little googling.

My spidey senses were going off.

I typed in her name, and the first link that showed up was a news article.

Her son had been brutally stabbed to death at a music festival 10 years ago.

In fact, the day of our presentation, as we sat on the Zoom call, was the 10-year anniversary.

To the day.

I slowly spun my computer around and my boss found a way to get us off the call.

You never know what someone is going through.

You never know the entire context.

Sometimes it’s work context.

Or mental health context.

Or something else entirely.

But good people in a bad system can seem like bad people.

What we say is far less impactful than how we say it or the context we say it in.

If you don’t know their context, you don’t know what they are saying.

Even if you have heard the words, and speak the language.

Give each other a little grace.

And someone tell me wtf fidelity means because I’m too lazy to google it.

Careful with those chocolates, kids.

Easter is on 4/20 this year, and I can 100% predict that a kid is going to eat some chocolate from an egg he found and forget to keep looking for the rest.

Not because of drugs. The poor kid has ADHD. Don’t be so judgmental.

be good

z