In Unreasonable Hospitality, Will Guidara highlights one of restaurateur Danny Meyers’ key insights: “Danny has always understood how language can build culture by making essential concepts easy to understand and to teach. He is brilliant at coining phrases around common experiences, potential pitfalls, and favorable outcomes.”

Whether you want to call them mottos, memes, or manifestos, words can be the building blocks of how we think and transmit ideas. You can also gauge how well someone is grasping your concepts—or at least making an effort to—by the language they’re responding to you with as well.