One of the first things I do when working with a document, especially a lingo-heavy one, is to look for the Glossary. If the document lacks a Glossary, I add one. Sometimes I call it a Vocabulary, if the lingo is especially insular or confusing. Being confused frustrates and angers me, a mindset that doesn’t usually allow me to take in knowledge, to glean anything from the document. Sometimes I question the document, out loud.

Digiday has a regularly recurring feature that sums up the question I think when confronted with that kind of insular lingo, their WTF series.

When I started working in advertising again, after working in a loosely related field for years, I found I needed to build myself a new glossary, to understand the vocabulary being tossed around. I shared an early draft of the vocabulary of digital advertising-related terms with a friend, and that’s included here.