> [!tldr] When there's a lot of things that mean basically the same thing
I'm not sure if this is a term that actually should exist, but it's something I came up with interacting with an [[Large Language Models|LLMs]] while investigating the nuances of some of the more ambiguous constructs of the [[Archimate]] meta-model. **Semantic crowding** is when there's a lot of terms or concepts that are almost identical in meaning or usage... where the distinction between them boils down to almost pure pedantry.
## Examples
For each of these I know the technical difference, but as they're used they're more often than not completely interchangeable.
- "Process" vs "Procedure"
- "Interface" vs "Service"
- "Container" vs "Component" in the [[C4 Model]] space
- "Input" vs "Control" in my beloved [[IDEF0]] space
Originally I was intending for this note to cover more generalized "100 different words for snow"-types of uses, but I think keeping it [[Systems Thinking]]-focused maybe the better move. Thus perhaps this should have been called "[[Semantic Crowding|Systemic Synonyms]]".
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# More
## Source
- self