Enough "stuff"!Written by Jennifer Stewart
Did you know that English language has an estimated vocabulary of 800,000 words? (Words R. McRoberts) We have words to describe every object, movement, feeling and thought on planet; we can pinpoint each little nuance of meaning, simply by choosing right word for right spot.Language isn't something that remains static - it's a living thing that grows and changes to meet our needs. We create new words to describe and explain new objects and concept - just consider number of words that have come into language as a result of technological developments over past decade. Words like Internet and fax are common-place now; we all recognise abbreviation WWW and children around world know what Pokemon means. Shakespeare, who was one of our most prolific and enduring writers, used approximately 22,000 different words in his published works. Well-educated people today, use about 5,000 different words when speaking and about 10,000 in their writing. Most of us have a 'working vocabulary' of 2,000 (which means that there are over 788, 000 words that are gathering dust on shelves of our minds). Of those 2,000 words, most commonly used are: the, of, and, to, a, in, that, is, I, it. Those ten little words (and I do mean little), account for 25% of all speech. There are fifty words, which make up 60% of everything we say - and only two of these have more than one syllable ... which brings us to ... "stuff". Why oh why (oh WHY) do otherwise professional sites use this term? Surely with 800,000+ words to choose from, it's possible to find a term to describe more specifically what is being offered.
| | WHERE IS EVERYBODY?Written by Jeff McCall
I was recently reminded of a TV advert promoting a travel company. In ad a character was wandering about a wilderness calling out "Is there anybody there?". The idea of ad was that everyone had gone off on cheap holidays bought from travel company.OK, so what's point! I was reminded of this while searching web for joint venture partners for an extremely lucrative deal I wanted to offer them. I was more than a little surprised at what I found; or what I didn't find more like. I couldn't believe how difficult it was on a lot of websites to find an email address I could use to contact webmaster or someone at company. Granted, some had one of those featureless online message forms. I don't know about you, but I find them very impersonal, somewhat akin to posting a message in a bottle, tossing it in sea and hoping sometime someone will answer. I much prefer a proper bona fide email address that I can enter in "To:" box of my email, and a name of a real person to converse with. I'm sure I'm not alone. There are probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of your potential customers jumping up with a hand in air at this point, shouting "Me to! Me to!" The upshot of this is that some webmasters and companies somewhere lost out on opportunity of making a tidy sum all because of a missing contact email address.
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