If you want to come across as a writer who really understands computers, the best way is to learn about them. Read technical books and blogs. Learn how HTML and HTTP work. Find out what the common security fallacies are.

But that’s a lot of work. A quicker way is to use the word “algorithm” a lot.

An algorithm is a precise but abstract description of a computational process. “Precise” means laying out each step mathematically, so that any implementation should produce the same results. “Abstract” means it’s independent of a particular programming language or operating system. You can implement an algorithm in C, PHP, Java, or any other language. Some algorithms work more easily in some languages than in others, but there’s no inherent requirement to use specific technology.

Computation is full of algorithms. They’re used for sorting data, for encrypting and decrypting, for drawing shapes, for implementing communication protocols, and for anything else you know exactly how to compute. One antonym for “algorithm” is “heuristic,” which is the computational equivalent of rules of thumb. Developers use heuristics for complicated problems where algorithms aren’t available.

Implementations of algorithms should yield consistent results, but sometimes they don’t. The way a system rounds numbers or its number of bits of precision can throw the results off. A seemingly tiny difference in the calculation details occasionally turns into a huge difference in the output. Talking knowledgeably about algorithms requires understanding these issues.

But this article is about tossing the word “algorithm” around to look like an expert. Start by forgetting everything I just told you. In fact, it’s most impressive if you use it where there isn’t any precise description of the process. In other words, where it isn’t an algorithm but a heuristic. It adds that “Je ne sais quoi.” Or perhaps that should be “Je ne sais rien.”

Use the term without explanation. The readers won’t understand, and they’ll be impressed that you do. Make it sound a bit threatening; imply that algorithms are what intrudes on readers’ privacy and lets social media sites manipulate them.

Don’t say what problem an algorithm solves. It’s much more impressive to talk about, for instance, “Facebook’s algorithm,” as if its entire website is built from one unified field algorithm.

Do all this, and readers will think you’re a computer genius. Gilbert and Sullivan knew how it works:

And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If this young man expresses himself
In terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
This deep young man must be.”

The customers will love it. The more times you stick the word “algorithm” into a piece, the better its SEO will be. (I’m expecting this article to dominate Google for the next week.)

I ask just one thing: Leave the customers who want good articles on computer issues to the people like me, who know what we’re writing about.