Washington's $6.7 Million Vocabulary Upgrade: 'The Problem' Is Dead, Long Live 'The Challenge'
WASHINGTON — After thirty-seven months of deliberation, six full-day retreats at a Bethesda conference center, and a final invoice that sources describe as "eye-watering even by federal standards," the Interagency Working Group on Strategic Communications Realignment has delivered its verdict on the single most pressing issue facing modern American governance: what to call the things that are going wrong.
The answer, contained in a 412-page report titled Toward a More Resilient Federal Vocabulary: A Framework for Linguistic Modernization in the Public Sector (Phase One), is that the government should stop using the word "problem" and start using the word "challenge."
The total cost of this determination: $6.7 million.
"We are enormously proud of what this working group has accomplished," said Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Narrative Infrastructure Gerald Foss at a Tuesday press briefing that twelve people attended. "The word 'problem' implies stasis. It implies defeat. 'Challenge,' by contrast, implies dynamism, forward motion, and the possibility of eventual resolution — none of which we are promising, but all of which we are implying."
The Science of Saying Nothing Differently
The working group, which was established in 2021 following what a White House memo described as "a perceived insufficiency in the government's rhetorical toolkit," comprised representatives from fourteen federal agencies, three independent offices, and a rotating cast of communications consultants billing at rates between $385 and $430 per hour.
Among the consultants' most celebrated contributions was the Semantic Severity Gradient, a proprietary framework that classifies government crises along a spectrum from "emerging complexity" to "accelerated structural evolution," with seventeen gradations in between. The word "collapse," the framework notes, does not appear anywhere on the gradient, as it "introduces unnecessary negativity into stakeholder engagement."
Consultant Diane Pruett of the firm Pruett Whitmore Strategic Language Partners, whose firm billed approximately $1.1 million across the project's lifespan, explained the methodology in terms accessible to the layperson.
"Language is infrastructure," she said. "When a bridge is structurally compromised, you don't say the bridge is broken. You say the bridge is experiencing a load-bearing transition. That's not spin. That's precision."
When asked whether a bridge experiencing a load-bearing transition was safe to drive across, Pruett said the question fell outside her firm's scope of engagement.
A Glossary for the Ages
Beyond the flagship "problem" to "challenge" reclassification, the working group's report delivers a comprehensive updated glossary that officials say will "fundamentally reshape how the federal government communicates with the American public" — or, as the glossary itself might prefer, "recalibrate the citizen-narrative interface."
Selected highlights from the new federal vocabulary include:
- "Crisis" is now "acute opportunity window"
- "Failure" is now "an outcome that informs future iteration"
- "Backlog" is now "a prioritization queue under active management"
- "We don't know" is now "our evidence base is currently in development"
- "Nothing happened" is now "foundational groundwork was established"
The glossary runs to 89 pages. An additional 14 pages are devoted to a style guide explaining how to use the glossary. A further 6 pages explain how to read the style guide.
"We wanted to be thorough," said Foss.
Stakeholder Reactions Across the Spectrum
Response to the report has been, in the working group's own terminology, "a mixed opportunity window."
Several agency communications directors reached for comment described the glossary as "genuinely useful," "a solid starting point," and "something I will absolutely read once I find the time," all of which are phrases that communications professionals recognize as meaning something has been filed and forgotten.
On Capitol Hill, reactions were warmer, largely because nobody had read the report yet but several staffers had seen the executive summary, which is four pages long and contains three pie charts.
"This is exactly the kind of proactive investment in federal communications capacity that the American people deserve," said a spokesperson for the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, who then immediately asked whether the working group had any findings on the phrase "proactive investment."
It does. "Proactive investment" has been reclassified as a "strategic resource deployment event." The spokesperson seemed pleased.
Less enthusiastic was Dr. Morris Egan, a professor of public administration at American University who has spent two decades studying federal communications spending.
"Six point seven million dollars," Egan said, pausing for what felt like a meaningful interval. "For a thesaurus."
He was asked whether he had any further comment.
"I think 'thesaurus' covers it," he said.
The Path Forward: More of the Same, Worded Differently
In keeping with the working group's mandate to "establish a durable framework for ongoing linguistic modernization," the report's final chapter recommends the immediate establishment of a successor body: the Interagency Working Group on Strategic Communications Realignment Assessment, whose purpose will be to evaluate whether the original working group's recommendations have been adopted, understood, or noticed by anyone in the federal government.
The estimated cost of the assessment working group is $4.2 million, though Foss noted this figure is "subject to revision based on evolving scope requirements," which the new glossary defines as "it will probably cost more."
The assessment group is expected to deliver its findings in 2028, at which point officials anticipate commissioning a third working group to determine what to do with the findings.
"Transformation takes time," said Pruett, whose firm has already been shortlisted for the assessment contract. "You can't change the way a government talks overnight. Well — you could. But you wouldn't want to. The throughput economics don't support it."
The $6.7 million report is available on the working group's website, which is currently experiencing what IT staff are calling a "digital accessibility transition event."
In previous vocabulary, the website is down.
