May 15, 2003

content-free

adj.

[by analogy with techspeak context-free] Used of a message that adds nothing to the recipient's knowledge. Though this adjective is sometimes applied to flamage, it more usually connotes derision for communication styles that exalt form over substance or are centered on concerns irrelevant to the subject ostensibly at hand. Perhaps most used with reference to speeches by company presidents and other professional manipulators. Content-free? Uh... that's anything printed on glossy paper. (See also four-color glossies.) He gave a talk on the implications of electronic networks for postmodernism and the fin-de-siecle aesthetic. It was content-free.

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:53 AM

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