Develop a shared vocabulary for tacit distinctions

Name the subtle distinctions you can detect but not yet explain — giving a word to a perception accelerates its transfer.

Why it works

Polanyi’s key insight is that tacit knowledge is focal awareness of an integrative whole, supported by subsidiary awareness of its parts. When you can name a subsidiary component, you bring it from subsidiary to focal awareness — making it teachable. Naming a subtle distinction (a "word for the feeling") converts it from a private perceptual event to a shared social object that can be pointed at, discussed, and refined.

How to do it

1. Identify a distinction you reliably detect but cannot name.
2. Invent or borrow a term for it from your community of practice.
3. Test the term with peers: can they identify the same referent? Refine until the term is shared.

Evidence

The role of specialized vocabulary in accelerating expertise transfer is well documented in professional communities of practice (surgery, jazz, martial arts): shared terms for subtle distinctions accelerate the transmission of tacit expertise. (mechanistic)

Naming can create false precision — a term can feel like it captures a distinction before it actually does, producing overconfident communication. The term requires validation through shared use.

Sources

• Polanyi (1966), "The Tacit Dimension"

Common mistake

Relying on "you know it when you see it" without building vocabulary — keeping tacit distinctions personal rather than shared, which makes them almost impossible to transmit to others.