Language is not just a bag of words

Via Ethan Marcotte, Jeff Eaton responding to Down with the Design System:

The problem is that treating a design system as a pantry full of widgets is, in and of itself, a failure of both craft and imagination. Think of it like a language: if a writer’s only engagement with it is grabbing words from the dictionary and heaping them together until “message” is achieved, things are going to suck. Language is more than a bag of words.

Pattern Wise, System Foolish

Preach!

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