ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that good semantics can lead to good practice and, conversely, poor semantics can lead to poor practice in the sphere of technology. Technology has become the leitmotif of the modern world and a linchpin of the international economy. The ubiquity of technology in contemporary society means that most social, political, economic, and environmental problems have a technological dimension to them. During the 1970s and 1980s the rubric of "appropriate technology" was taken up by a plethora of organizations, interest groups, individuals and schools of thought, and its usage consequently became loose and confusing. The chapter explores what is the relationship between technological semantics and the familiar stuff of contemporary human life. "Technology" is employed in the English language to denote and connote a mixture of phenomena and concepts. Technology has relevance to most fields of human endeavor, and appears to be deeply enmeshed in most aspects of modern society.
