Pay Attention To The Words
When someone asked a sales person why an item was so expensive, the woman replied, “Let me explain the value of this product to you.” Rita Rudner, tongue in cheek, said, “The word aerobics came about when the gym teachers got together and said, ‘If we’re going to charge $10 [probably $35 today] an hour, we can’t call it “jumping up and down.'””
Pay attention to the words you speak. Think about words before you speak them. Is there a better way of saying this? Listen to words others use that explain an idea better than you could have. Are these words I can use in my speaking and writing vocabulary? Subscribe to Merriam-Webster’s online “Word of the Day.” ne word recently was “spurious,” a word I had not often heard, but a clever way to say an action is not genuine. Even if you find the word that day is not of value to you, this discipline will remind you to focus on the words you use.
Four years ago a movie was made that lasted only briefly in major theatres. But the title may have been one of the best titles for a movie because in four words you got the essence of the entire movie: “Snakes on a Plane.” Of course that title told me that this was a movie I did not want to see! As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”