Aspect Oriented Programming without the buzzwords....?

After the AOP panel at the TSS Java Symposium had finished, Ted Neward threw out a challenge to some of the participants to come up with "an explanation of AOP without resorting to buzzwords." I've been mulling that around in my head for a few days now... What follows should be considered an early version of an attempt to explain what's at the heart of AOP (from my perspective), without resorting to any buzzwords. Following the conclusion of this paragraph, the following words and phrases are hereby banned for the rest of today's entry: scattering, tangling, crosscutting, modularity, encapsulation, abstraction, dominant decomposition, concern. The Aspects Blog

I'm only now getting to grips with the concepts behind AOP and found Adrian Colyer's posting quite useful/interesting. His explanation doesn't go unchallenged however - the comments from other people on his posting are worth following as well.