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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Taboo "rationality," please. - Less Wrong
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Normally, people manage to communicate using our informal, muddly, complicated, natural language abilities. Sometimes this breaks down when we're discussing value-laden or highly abstract concepts.
Breaking words down into definitions doesn't solve the problem - the components that you define with need to be communicated, too. This lowest-level communication needs to be informal, non-defined primitives.
Tabooing words reboots the informal process of achieving communication, without the fuss of arguing about whether a definition is correct, or queries about which definition you are using.
The problem is that definitions are not hierarchical, you never get to the lowest level, because there isn't one. You need to choose a way to the target concept that communicates it as unambiguously as possible. The words spoken by one person guide another on his own map, pointing to the deeper and deeper concepts that require nontrivial arrangements from the words to single out, or even build anew.
Some words are broken, and lead the listener in the swamps. We should avoid these words, and use other healthier landmarks instead. Sometimes it requires a lengthy detour to get around the swamps, but the road is not necessarily any bumpier or conversely more streamlined than what would be expected of the original one.