On Words and Business

DuctTape Marketing shares a list of most often mispronounced words.

Reading it is both fun and tremendously annoying, as I recall people mispronouncing certain words and getting under my skin!

This article on favorite marketing acronyms got me thinking about the topic, and a quick search revealed an online acronym dictionary: The acronym finder.

It turns out that my initials are also the acronym for things like the Military Sealift Command, Montana State College, and the Mulch and Soil Council.

What about your initials? Anything fun or frightening?

Along with wish lists and reviews of the past year, December is a time to reflect on the top ten of anything. Time Magazine has listed, among other things, the 10 Best Chores to Outsource. While none of these is strictly business-related, I just love some of the choices (and am shocked by a couple of them!).

10. Designing a dress (check)

9. Decorating a home (not yet, but I’d love to)

8. Being your concierge (on my list!)

7. Sculpting a bronze bust (I so want to find someone to do this, as a birthday surprise)

6. Preparing your tax returns (check)

5. Making a video tribute for your sister’s wedding (I don’t have a sister)

4. Tutoring your son in math (don’t have a son, either)

3. Illustrating a book your mother wrote for her grandchildren (I know who I’d hire for this!)

2. Playing a video game to reach higher levels (I wouldn’t even know which game to have ‘em play for me)

1. Pregnancy (Have things gotten a little bit carried away with offshoring? According to the article: “…now you can hire someone in India to carry your child.”)

Happy Top Ten!

 Yogi Berra can teach us a thing or two about persuasive writing.

Yogi Bear can teach us a thing or two about being true to yourself and your brand. Despite always in the ranger’s hair he was, as many of you know, smarter than the average bear.

Someone is actually working on a stupid filter for email messages, as Josh Quittner writes in this week’s Fortune magazine. This “promises to do to idiotic online comments what a spam filter does to unwanted e-mail: put it in a place where it can’t hurt anyone.”

We all can write stupid sometimes. But irony and sarcasm, not generally considered stupidity, are harder to keep on the right side of the filter. Here’s an intriguing quote from the article, and something to think about if you want not to be seen as stupid.

“…Ortiz, who studied linguistics as an undergrad, recently noticed a pattern in the way some writers use letter repetition. The clueless tend to repeat consonants: ‘This video is amazinggggg!!!’ By comparison, say Ortiz, ‘when you repeat a vowel, you are being sarcastic–’Yeaaaaaah.’”

Visit StupidFilter if you want to help out.

Why do people use the term zoo to define a place or situation that is hectic, overcrowded, or frenzied?

Have you ever been to a zoo where the animals were running around unconfined, bumping into everyone and everything, were loud and obnoxious, or were unaware of their surroundings?

If you have, let me know. I’m interested in visiting that zoo.