Archives for the 'Linguistics and Semantics' Category
Headline decisions
I know there was a lull in my blogging. I actually don’t know why. But here we go again. Fresh and new, after deleting nearly 1,000 spam comments that were held in quarantine. That’s what you get when you don’t blog for over a month.
This one’s short and to the point, however. I browsed my [...]
Biographies, storytelling and the hero’s journey
Ben Wallace-Wells writes a fantastic article for The New York Times featuring David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief strategist, or by his own description the “keeper of the message.” The article demonstrates the crucial role of biographies, storytelling and the hero’s journey.
Barack Obama has currently two memoirs in circulation. The first, Dreams From My Father, is [...]
Translating Dutch poetry
A while ago, someone at work approached me because his friend would love to go over some poetry translations with a native Dutch speaker. This friend, Stephen Frech, is working on translations of poems by Menno Wigman. Last night I had the second multi-hour session of delving deep into the poetry.
Although I speak both English [...]
Broadcasting body language
The reason I watched last night’s State of the Union address was not because of the spoken language. There was nothing new there; same old political speech. In fact, I fast-forwarded through most of the War on Terror parts. But there is something else that makes it worth while to watch; and that something is [...]
The Audacity of Being Yourself
I had a two-hour lunch on Tuesday without eating a single bite of food. The two hours were mostly spent in line at the Borders on Michigan Avenue, where Senator Barack Obama was signing his latest book The Audacity of Hope.
I had the privilege to run into Obama before. I was heading for the exit [...]
Overly friendly is the word
“Overly friendly” is fast becoming the new “activist judge” or “staying the course:” words or short taglines that are repeated so much that they become an identifiable message dealing with an identifiable issue; identifiable just from one or two words.
Of course, I am talking about Mark Foley’s “overly friendly” e-mails to a congressional page. But [...]
The Story Factor
I have just finished Annette Simmons’ book The Story Factor. The book is a guide and sort of a how-to on influencing through storytelling. Although it was an easy and fairly short read, it took me a long time to finish the book. A couple of months to be honest.
This is not a criticism on [...]
Metrosexual response and other updates
Mark Simpson has a different take on last week’s Business Week article about the metrosexual. And as usual, he makes some excellent points. I said before, I was particularly content with the sentence “Oh yes, and he acquired the feminine persona we’ve become familiar with,” as I understand that he acquired this persona because of [...]
Of planets and integrity
It is not my intention to add to the persistent stereotype of beauty pageant participants, nor blonds for that matter, but integrity is not “doing whatever you have to do to achieve a goal.” Last night, Miss Teen Montana stumbled over her words as she tried to describe integrity as the drive to reach a [...]
Metrodaddy enters blogosphere
I just discovered “metrodaddy” Mark Simpson has a new blog. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one, as it should offer an interesting take on consumerism and masculinity. His latest word invention is sporno, as in sport and porno. I wonder what advertising agency will take this word and twist and turn it next.
Controversy [...]
