Blogs

Why Don’t You Know What Crib Means

What do you think of when I use the word crib? Did you think a baby’s bed or a place to live in urban slang? Standing alone it’s hard to determine. The words that lead up to and are after in a sentence make it possible for you to grasp the meaning for crib. What do you think of when I say stroke?

That’s the power of language. Words, put together, make communication possible. It’s the essence of how people interact, whether spoken or written.

An Example – Game Shows

Game shows use this as the basis of how they work. Think of the show the $25,000 Pyramid. One teammate tries to get the other to say a word by describing that word. This is the same idea as speaking a word without context except in reverse. What makes it difficult is words can have more than one definition and not every person knows the same definition. This involves the teammate giving different meanings as clues to help their partner guess the right word.

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Quotes That Make You Think for Yourself

Delighted, I stumbled across Steven Yates article on”Quotes That Make you Think for Yourself,” His message is spot on to what I tout in my blog, and in my book, “Who’s Changing the Meaning?”

Yates wrote language is a tool used to steer people in certain directions. Consequently, those who understand how to utilize language to their advantage are doing exactly that. They are taking control by way of their words.

The philosopher’s quotes Yates sites demonstrate how language is can be a weapon. However, once aware, you recognize when it is being used on you. His article explores what we can control and what we need to be aware of.

5 Quotes From Major Philosophers Guaranteed to Make you Think

Classic Books Address Humanity’s Future

The classic books, Atlas Shrugged and Brave New World, about humanity’s future, are great reads while under mandatory stay-at-home directives. We never thought our life would be like it is today, which makes both novels relevant for right now. They address humanity’s future. Atlas Shrugged is about human greatness, and the havoc several great men and women have to struggle with. Brave New World provides a look at a darkly satiric vision of the future that is both enthralling and terrifying.

Buy Atlas Shrugged on amazon.com

Buy Brave New Word on amazon.com

2019 WOTY and Neologism

What?

The Word of the Year for 2019 is “existential,” or “climate emergency,” “climate strike,” or my personal favorite, “they;” depending on where you search. Each year a group of linguists from different organizations; i.e. Merriam-Webster, Oxford Languages, Collins Dictionary, dictionary.com, and the American Dialect Society, among others, pick their word of the year. Sometimes abbreviated WOTY, the word of the year is a singular word or expression that is significant to the public. Linguists also look at the usage of current words, which is called neologism. 

Linguists study the science and utilization of language. Their attention is on public practice of the term or expression and how it interfaces with the real-world. To become the Word of the Year, linguists consider the most searched words, the ones that have a significant spike from the previous year, and do they have lasting potential.

Merriam-Webster‘s WOTY

The 2019 Word of the Year for Merriam Webster is they, having a 313% spike in searches over the previous year. Moreover, there is a shift in the way they is used, which lured people to their dictionaries to hunt for the current definition. The first definition states, “those people, animals, or things.” The second meaning is, “used to refer to people in a general way or to a group of people who are not specified.”

As stated by Merriam-Webster, “English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence, they has been used for this purpose for over 600 years.” Preferred in professional writing, now in the place of the word “he or she,” use the singular pronoun “them or they,”

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What Someone Else’s Sickness Costs You

It’s disturbing witnessing the number of people out and about who show signs of the flu. They cough, sneeze and look like they have been run over by a train, still in the contagious stage. It’s not just the adults. A parent will be shopping with their child who’s wiping his nose, has a fever and coughs like it is coming straight out of his chest. Along with that, the child picks up everything in sight.

Why do they think this is acceptable! Today people have the attitude of taking care of themselves, not think about the effect on others. In the end, it hurts them too.

Influenza, (also known as the “flu”) is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. Common symptoms are: comes on quickly, fever, aches, chills, fatigue, cough, headache, sometimes along with sneezing, stuffy nose, and sore throat.

WHAT THE CDC SAYS

The CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 9.7 million flu illnesses, 87,000 hospitalizations and 4,800 deaths from flu. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This year, influenza B is predominant. The strain affects children more than adults. Usually, the season starts with influenza A, which affects older adults more than children.  With influenza B, the result is more cases of child flu and fewer cases of elderly adults.

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I Kept My 2019 New Year’s Resolution

How I Kept My Resolution

It’s that time again! The dawn of a new year brings about the desire to start fresh, begin again, and bring about changes in our life. At the onset, we reflect on what we accomplished, review how we ended 2019, and decide where we want to go. It’s a revivifying time, enabling us to reset and begin anew. One way to jumpstart the process is to make a New Year’s resolution.

Research shows that “while as many as 45 percent of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, only 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals.” www.history.com

Very few follow through with their resolutions. The following shows what typically happens:

75% of people make it past the first week.

71% make it past 2 weeks.

64% make it past 1 month.

46% make it past 6 months.

By the end of the year, only 8% of people have kept their resolution.

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What’s Going to Save you From the Mid-Year Tax Changes

Tax benefits from the mid-year changes eliminated and drastically reduced tax cuts businesses count on. Now they need to be saved.

The 2019 Mid-Year Tax changes eliminated or drastically reduced tax incentives and deductions that businesses depend on. Some of the tax changes took effect in 2018 and also impact the filing of 2019 taxes. In particular, The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) added dozens of tax changes that directly affect businesses. These changes are incentives and deductions that firms use to offset their tax liability. Without them, companies need some way to save them from the loss.

Although, according to the IRS, “The new law changed tax rates and brackets, revised business expense deductions, increased the standard deduction, removed personal exemptions, increased the Child Tax Credit and limited or discontinued certain deductions.” www.irs.gov. Those deductions are what businesses have counted on for years.

What’s Eliminated

Making it to the chopping block, here are a few deductions that have been eliminated:

Moving expenses deduction, Mileage rebated deduction, Entertainment deductions, Transportation fringe benefits, Corporate AMT, and NOL carryover, to name a few. Not only do we lose them, but we have to discover what each of them proposes.

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Guess Where These Success Secrets Came From

You will never guess where these success secrets came from. In the early 2000’s I was fortunate to discover network marketing. Little did I know that the MLM (multi-level-marketing) industry would teach me how to start, run, and succeed in my own business.

Secrets Came From

This is an unknown benefit of network marketing. Outsiders only see the product or service provided. There is more to what happens when representatives gather.

Also known as direct sales, the latest figures show the industry did $35.4 billion in retail sales for 2018. According to Direct Selling.org, there are over 6.2 million representatives in the U.S.

Where My Success Was

The company I represented dealt with travel. It was a perfect fit since I love traveling. They have one of the best training programs to teach what’s needed to run a business. Accordingly, I learned much more than how to travel like a king at a pauper’s price.

One of the skills I mastered was how to approach people without fear. I can walk up to anyone and start a conversation. This helped me conquer something I dreaded doing.

Another ability I acquired was how to run a business. Network marketing is not about getting rich quick. It’s about building your business equipped with tools to react quickly, handle problems, set your goals, and stay on target. I gained wisdom and confidence that’s needed to be successful.

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“Who’s Changing the Meaning” Wins Honorable Mention

‘Who’s Changing the Meaning?’ Wins  Honorable Mention in Coveted 2017 Royal Dragonfly Book Award

My book, “Who’s Changing the Meaning?” won Honorable Mention in the 2017 Royal Dragonfly Book Award. The Royal Dragonfly is the source that librarians and teachers use. The categories The book earned Honorable Mention in are:

Best Newbie NonFiction

Best Cover Design

2017 ROYAL DRAGONFLY BOOK AWARDS

Tick Tock, You are on the Clock

Working With Commission Salespeople

The amount of time you spend with a commission salesperson determines their pay rate.

When working with commission salespeople, time is a valuable commodity. Tick Tock, you are on the clock. Once they approach you a clock is ticking. Let’s see how time works for you and the salesman.

A commission salesperson is paid a percentage of the sales they make. The more sales the more money the employee receives. Commission based salaries are either paid totally off what the salesperson sold or may have a base salary plus commission. Even with a base salary, their sales make up most of what they are paid.

Therefore, what you do while working with these employees makes them money or creates their doom. Most people look at the process as the salesperson works for them. This frame of mind hampers the ability of the employee to help you, which in turn makes it difficult for you to get what you want.

Salespeople are there to help you. They want to find what you came there for in the timeliest, friendly way they can. The salesperson is sensitive to your time and you should be sensitive to theirs. It comes down to Time. Continue reading “Tick Tock, You are on the Clock”

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