When it comes to diseases like cancer, much can be read into the language we use. For instance, there's a great deal of debate about whether military terminology like "battling" cancer are useful, or suggest that the disease is a fight that only the strongest can win. Likewise, Silicon Valley's tech companies in recent years have unveiled moonshot initiatives they claim will someday "cure" diseases like cancer. When announcing a 3 billion investment into life sciences research, Mark Zuckerberg described his goal to cure the disease within his daughter's lifetime. We've been using such terminology for decades, but is it helpful?