Whether we like it or not, dictionaries are living, breathing documents, and new words are added to them regularly.
Although the Oxford English Dictionary editors get the final say, they actually look to us to dictate whether a word should be added. In other words, we have no one but ourselves to blame for all the weird words that make the cut every year.
Organized, ambitious, competitive, and sometimes a little impatient. Laid-back, collaborative, creative, and sometimes a little messy. Does one of those sentences describe you better than the other?
Most of you probably already associate with either the “Type A” or the “Type B” personality. Or, perhaps you associate with both in different contexts — like those of us who schedule our time and write to-do lists like maniacs, and yet have never made our beds once in our lives.
Are you pro-semi-colon? Does the word “irregardless” make you cringe? Do you silently (or not-so-silently) correct your friends’ and family’s grammar mistakes on a regular basis?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, chances are you’re a grammar nerd. It’s cool — a lot of us are, too. Actually, it turns out there are quite a few of you out there.
Mark your calendars: October 21, 2015 is “Back to the Future Day.”
Why? The date of Marty McFly and Doc Brown’s visit to the future in the second movie in the Back to the Future trilogy has finally caught up with us. And now we get to compare what the writers and producers thought would be true in 2015 with what actually came true.
When was the last time you paid attention to how you dot your i’s and cross your t’s? Probably never. Well, you may want to grab whatever handwritten notes you have handy and take a look.
As it turns out, how you write can indicate more than 5,000 personality traits. The size and shape of your letters, spacing between words, and even how hard you press your pen down can signify all sorts of characteristics. It can even give clues about your health and energy levels.
You know what’s really difficult?
Being succinct. Seriously … it’s ridiculously hard. If you don’t believe me, just grab your favorite copywriter and ask them.
It’s especially difficult to express a complex emotional concept in just a couple of words — which is exactly what a slogan does.
People say the best things in life are free. They also say, however, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. So who’s right?Continue Reading
What we eat has a direct impact on our performance at work. Want your mind (and your body) to perform optimally? Then you’ll need to practice good nutrition.
While this concept is neither new nor revolutionary, it’s the ability to actually do it that’s eluding many of us. Why?
Recently, someone sent me a blog post that helped them get to inbox zero — for good.
“It takes about 15 minutes to set up, but might change how you work with email forever,” claims the post’s author, Andreas Klinger. I was eager to try it out.
This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.
Sales can be a bit like detective work at times. It would be nice if you could take everything your prospects said at face value. But, as any sharp salesperson knows, buyers aren’t always forthcoming or totally honest about what they’re really thinking.
When I was a kid, I remember practicing my signature in a pocket-sized composition notebook in case I got famous one day. I’d scribble down different variations — some sharp and nearly illegible, others wispy and over-sized.
At the time I hadn’t put much thought into what the style of my signature said about my personality, but as it turns out, signature analysis is actually a real thing.
Unsatisfied by his current job, Tom Dickson found himself with three things: the need for a change, a passion for bread making, and a $10 vacuum motor.
In search of a way to combine them, Dickson started his own blender company, Blendtec. Unfortunately, he quickly found that generating buzz for blenders wasn’t all that easy.
Then one day, his marketing director found inspiration in a pile of sawdust left behind by one of Dickson’s “blender durability experiments,” and proposed an idea that would soon propel Blendtec to fame.
This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.
This week, Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, released her annual Internet Trends report. It’s the 20th edition in a series spanning back to 1994 — the year Yahoo launched and three years before Google.com was registered.
Before I became an inbound marketer, I once made $50,000 a month spamming Google. I worked a maximum of 10 hours a week. And I am telling you from the bottom of my heart: Never, never ever follow in my footsteps.
This blog post will tell you exactly why.
