Context matters. Whether it’s linguistically, culturally, or anything else – when and where and how you say something matters. It’s the carrier for the vitamins, the vessel for the astronauts. You can’t deliver what you want without it.
And it doesn’t always translate. When I meet someone who grew up where I grew up, is around my age, and roughly my socio-economic class, I can talk to them in a weird patois of Simpsons references and 1337-speak and they’ll understand it perfectly. In a different country, to a different age group, etc.? Definitely not. And we’re not even discussing language yet.
It’s not just about adjusting the context, either. I can’t say a great idea is a “home run” to your average German and have it mean anything, but I also can’t just change that phrase to “goal” just because the German likes soccer. A goal and a home run are different, and they mean different things as an analogy. In other words, some contexts can’t carry certain information at all.
Communication is hard. But it’s even harder if you assume it’s universal. Respect the limits, and ask about context more than you assume it.
The Opportunity Machine 