Semasiology – the study of the meaning of the word
Semasiology is a discipline of linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word X mean?"
(Wikipedia)
Words have meaning: People assume that things mean the same thing when the same words are used. That's exactly what words are for. Unfortunately, some word meanings or definitions are not always completely unambiguous and so we are unfortunately used to the fact that a word can have at least different nuances of meanings.
Unfortunately, a word is sometimes reinterpreted to such an extent or the meaning so broadly that it ultimately becomes a new meaning or even loses its usefulness to express something.
It's not hard to guess that in the context of agility, I want to get into the terms "Product Owner" and "Scrum Master" and their meaning. Sometimes it is no longer bearable how these terms are downright misused in various frameworks, that want to be treated as agile methods or models, in articles or even job advertisements. There are complete reversals of the actual meaning and so even project managers become Scrum Masters or Product Owners, depending on the potential addressee. A few style bloopers:
"The Scrum Master pays attention to the sprint velocity and thus ensures that the schedule is adhered to". Excuse me?
"The Product Owner defines the budget and the necessary resources and pays attention to in-time and in-budget completion." Aha.
What the heck?
Presumably, the word creation "agile project management" has contributed to the fact that terms from product development have also found their way into project management, and so unfortunately the language proliferation cannot be eliminated so easily. But I still don't want to leave it unturned and make a request: If you don't have a clue about agility, you don't want to use an agile framework or you want to look better in job descriptions, don't use words (anyway) if they don't fit and have a different meaning. Fair is fair, isn’t it?
The official definition of the terms can be found in the Scrum Guide. That's the reference.