An appreciation for the life of Paul Baran, dead at 84; helped create Internet's precursor Arpanet.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Fellow citizens of the Internet, one of our Founding Fathers, Paul Baran, has died, at 84,  in Palo Alto, California.

Pray, take a moment from your busy day online and have a kind thought for a man, a brilliant man, so far in advance of his times that he was written off as little more than a kook, his idea science fiction, not practical technology.

This is a story about people who see visions that others cannot see. So often spurned, they must instead be cherished.

This is a story about people who should have known better, whose ignorance and  unwillingness to listen nearly cost the world one of its greatest and most important assets. Thankfully wiser heads prevailed.

This is the story of a man who persisted in the face of rejection, wondering why authorities didn't "get it"  but determined to persist until they did. He triumphed and we all won.

This is the story of Paul Baran, and it is a fascinating look at how one man's persistence and unwavering belief can lead to dramatic change and benefits for all.

Born in Poland, April 29,1926.

Paul Baran's first piece of good luck happened when his Jewish parents emigrated from Grodno, Poland (now in Belarus) May 11, 1928. Had his family stayed in Poland, they would almost certainly have gone to a concentration camp and horrible death. But Paul, his two siblings and parents landed in Boston, then moved to Philadelphia where his father opened a grocery store.

Baran graduated from Drexel University in 1949 (then called Drexel Institute of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering. After graduation, he joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company where he did technical work on UNIVAC models. Baran was lucky again, for these models were the first brand of commercial computers in the USA. He had a heady glimpse of the future, a computer-based future.

In 1955, he moved to Los Angeles and worked for Hughes Aircraft on radar systems. He obtained a Master's degree from UCLA. His thesis was on character recognition.

Baran then went to work at the RAND Corporation (1955).  There he took on the task of designing a "survivable" communications system that could maintain communications between end points in the face of damage from nuclear weapons. This was the height of the Cold War and America was vulnerable. Most American military communications used High Frequency connections which could be put out of action for many hours by nuclear attack.

Baran decided to automate RAND director Franklin B. Collbohm's previous work with emergency communication over conventional AM radio networks and showed that a distributed relay mode architecture could be survivable. Moreover, the Rome Air Development Center soon showed that the idea was practical. Paul Baran had a foot on the path that would, in due course, become the Internet we all rely upon and cannot imagine life without.

"Message blocks".

Still at RAND Corp. Baran next outlined the fundamentals for packaging data into discrete bundles, which he called "message blocks". The bundles are then sent on various paths around a network and reassembled at their destination. Such a plan is known as packet switching.

Baran's key idea was to build a distributed communications network, less vulnerable to attack or disruption than conventional networks. In a series of technical papers published in the 1960s, he suggested that networks be designed with redundant routes so that if a particular path failed or was destroyed, messages could still he delivered. He approached AT&T with  the idea to build his proposed network.

AT&/T's response? "Baloney, your idea won't work", and so resoundingly refused.

Had the luck of Paul Baran, the lucky man, run out at last?

Certainly not because Baran had the necessary trait for this unpromising situation: he was dogged, persistent, indefatigable about explaining just what his futuristic invention could do. He never quit.

He needed it all in the face of AT&T's rooted opposition to Baran's idea. What they particularly disliked was this:

Baran's design flew in the face of telephony design of the time, placing inexpensive and unreliable nodes at the center of the network, and more intelligent terminating "multiplexer" devices at the endpoints. In Baran's words, unlike the telephony company's equipment, his design didn't require expensive "gold plated" components to be reliable.

AT&T engineers said over and over that Baran just plain didn't understand the science and technology. But he did...  far more than the AT&T people who couldn't see the bonanza in front of them and so threw away the chance to develop -- and possibly own -- the  Internet, a situation with immense consequences for all of us, not least AT&T which painfully discovered that "big" isn't always right.

"Paul wasn't afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else thought was the right or only thing to do," said Vinton Cerf, a vice president at Google who was a  colleague and long-time friend of Baran. "AT&T repeatedly said his idea wouldn't work and wouldn't participate  in the Arpanet project."

Arpanet... and vindication.

In 1969, the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency built a network that used Baran's ideas along with those of other communications pioneers, the Founding Fathers and Mothers of the 'net.

In due course, Arpanet was replaced by the Internet we know. Paul Baran's crucial invention packet switching still lies at the heart of the network's internal workings, an insight so valuable that President George Bush gave him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

One of the nicest things to report is that Baran always said, forthrightly, that credit for development of Arpanet and the Internet should always be distributed as widely as possible. Founding People all needed recognition, not just a few. It was a gesture from the heart.

Now one of the great inventors of the age, a man of intelligence and insight is gone. However Paul Baran's chief invention (amongst his many) lives on, spectacularly so. Lucky himself, we are yet the luckier... for we had him, an avatar for the new, connected world in which we all must make our way. Paul Baran, we have good reason to remember you and rejoice.



About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling books and conducts daily webinars.
 
Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com



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Does your dead dog smell? Reflections on marketing myths and realities from one who knows.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

In the days when I taught university level marketing, I set my eager-beaver students a task.

Write a classified or space ad... and report on how it draws and what you did to handle any responses  you received. In short, this project, like my teaching in general, was never merely theoretical, detached from reality. It was real! Vital! Truthful... and often, as a result, jolting. In other words, your class project either made money... or it didn't. Much more than your grade depended on it.

The scene of the crime...

All my students were adult practitioners, that is people who were already employed in professional positions or worked in home-based businesses or on the Internet. These were people who had a strong and pressing interest in mastering marketing. These students came because they needed to learn the ins and outs of marketing... or else. To such people one had an obligation, a sacred responsibility, to speak honestly, speak candidly, and address their real world concerns.

And I did.

On one occasion, a bright professional woman (I had lots of them in my classes) had the task of presenting her classified ad to the class... explaining why she wrote the ad she wrote, where she ran it, what the results were, how she followed up the respondents, and (and it was the all-important and) how much money this ad generated.

In other words, it was all real-life stuff.

She wrote her ad, as instructed, on the chalk board, the better for us to see the words which would shortly be shown as either golden, or dross.  Then I became the Joe Friday ("facts, ma'am, just the facts") of the marketing drag-net.

"When did you start running this ad?" (Specific date required.)

"Where do you run this ad?" (Specific publication or venue required.)

"How many responses did you get?" (Specific number required.)

And then the kicker...

"How much money did you make... after deducting all actual costs of running the ad and responding to respondents?" (Exact dollar figures required.)

The lady squirms...

Now the moment of high truth and full disclosure had arrived. What had started as merely a class project had become for the person reporting a matter of life and death. The ad copy, you see, would show whether she had mastered the marketing essentials that either produced bucks... and all that those bucks could buy... or not.

Everything was riding on what she reported.  And she knew it...

Bad, bad, tormentingly bad.

I an inveterate reader of body language, and this student's was typical of those who wish they were in any other place on earth rather than here, the cynosure of every eye in this most unrelenting of classes. Of course I knew she was squirming, mulling over how to disclose and deliver facts which (from that all important body language) were sure to be uncongenial. So... along with every member of the class.... I waited to see what the lady would say and do.

And we waited....

Then, at last, she admitted the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth... and it wasn't pretty. She had run her classified ad six times... had not had a single response... and, of course, and worst of all, hadn't made a single penny.

Now, the lady, this aspiring marketer, stood before her classmates.... abashed, humiliated, at rock bottom, a total marketing failure.

Then I told her the first essential truth of marketing: does your dead dog smell? And does it, day by day, smell worse... until the nauseating stench overpowers everything else?

The ad copy you produce is like a dog. Its job is to go out, your servant, finding and bringing home what it captures; the quarry that sustains you and gives you comfort, even excess.

No dead dogs do this...  neither do ads which fail to produce responses.

The student began to get the picture.

Her ad hadn't pulled and yet she continued to use it, paying good Yankee dollars  to do so.. despite the fact she KNEW the dog was dead, stinking.

Why had she done this?

First, because she was sure, absolutely sure, Her Ad Was Brilliant, the stuff of legend... she was invested in the words... certain that given a chance they would produce the desirable results; aged to perfection, like a fine vintage.

But that is a huge mistake... and now she was willing, and the entire class with her, to find the essential nubbin of truth, that made everything she had done worthwhile.

1) Marketing copy doesn't improve with age. It either works at once, immediately, or it never works at all. Dead dogs never become quick and agile again... they just stink the more.

2) ALL marketing copy, at  ALL times  must be evaluated, starkly , by results and nothing but results.

3) You must never, ever re-run marketing copy without knowing its previous results.

4) The entire business of marketing is about writing copy, testing copy, evaluating the results produced by this copy, then tweaking the copy to improve it and your overall results.

Marketing is and always be an action sport... it is not for the slothful, lazy, or unassertive.

More tips

** Never, ever become invested in, beguiled by the marketing copy  you create. It either works (producing responses and money), or it doesn't. Success isn't everything here... it's the ONLY thing.

** Never re-run ANY marketing copy until  you are certain it works; that is, until you have money in hand.

**  Trash your erroneous but deeply felt belief that you can find marketing copy which is so good, so responsive that you never have to change it, never have to do anything else with it than run it and reap perpetual rewards.

Such copy doesn't exist, never existed, and will never exist.

Marketing is the most active sport in the world. Those who win at this sport, and the rewards can be staggering, are, to a person, people who are bold, active, engaged... not sleepy-heads hoping against hope that they will find and eternally profit from a few magic words artfully strung together. Those words have never been written.

Thus, energize yourself for the marketing you must do today, for if you want the rewards of marketing you must master and remain focused on and dedicated to the unrelenting truths of marketing.

Otherwise you are hunting with a dead dog... a dog that will never produce results. It will simply stink to high heaven. And that will never do.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. He is happy to give all readers, 50,000 free guaranteed visitors for attending his live webcast today.
Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com

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An appreciation for the life of Dr. Harry Coover, inventor of Super Glue, dead at 94.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Ever hear of Dr. Harry Coover? Probably not.

Know what cyanoacrylates are? Probably not.

Yet both of them have a place in your life -- under the commercial name Super Glue. You've surely heard of -- and used -- that!

And now you're about to learn the story about a smart man, his accidental invention, and how it holds the world together.

Picture the scene...

It's war time in America - World War II war time that is -- and Dr. Coover is doing his bit. He was working on a project; experimenting with acrylates for use in clear plastic gun sights. Problem was, he had to call it quits because those darned sticky acrylates just kept sticking to everything. Dr. Coover was in sight of his most well known invention... but he missed the forest for the trees. That time.

Fast forward to 1951. 

Fred Joyner, who was working with Dr. Coover at Eastman Kodak's laboratory in Tennessee, was testing compounds looking for a heat- resistant coating for jet cockpits. When Joyner spread the 910th compound on the list  between two lenses on a refractometer to take a reading on the velocity of light through it, he discovered he could not separate the lenses.

His initial reaction was panic at the loss of expensive lab equipment. No wonder. He had just ruined a machine worth $3000, which in 1951 was a fortune.

Yes, panic.

But Dr. Coover, remembering his 1942 problem with sticky cyanoacrylates had an "aha" moment. The forest was beginning to emerge... a moment of insight and perception that happens to every inventor -- especially if they're as smart as Harry Coover.

Yup, Harry Coover was about to break through, with the discovery that we all know and use all the time.

Coover in time-honored inventor fashion looked at cyanoacrylates in a new way. Not as things that ruin things like valuable lab equipment... but rather as adhesives with unique properties. They required no heat or pressure to bond.

Eureka! This was new, different, important.

The team started testing Coover's hypothesis. It must have been fun in the lab as they tried this new substance on various items. Each time the items became permanently bonded... just like Harry Coover and cyanoacrylates.

Kodak knew Harry and his team were on to Something Big. After all everybody and his brother were always attempting to bond things... but they usually didn't stick for very long which was a source of unending annoyance to all sorts of people.

In due course, Coover received patent number 2,768,109 for his "Alcohol-Catalyzed Cyanoacrylate Adhesive Composition/Superglue" and began refining the product for commercialization. His company packaged the adhesive as "Eastman 910" and began marketing it in 1958.

Marketing types quickly realized (faster than the inventive guys) that "Eastman 910" was most assuredly NOT a name to conjure with. What did it mean anyway? Flagging sales for one thing...  A hot new name, a spokesman, and a break were required.

And, hey presto, there was Garry Moore, host of "I've Got A Secret" and Dr. Harry Coover, his guest. Dr. Coover's secret, of course, was that he had invented Super Glue. And then... he was asked to demonstrate. Coover was a natural showman and was eager to show what his baby could do.

A metal bar was lowered onto the stage, and Dr. Coover used a dab of the glue to connect two metal parts. Then he grabbed one and was raised in the air on the strength of his invention.

America took note. But Kodak couldn't make it profitable enough. It sold the business to National Starch in 1980, and things took off. The 1942 accident that started it all had turned into one of America's best-known products... it was the glue that kept the nation together!

But the best use for Super Glue was one you could hardly imagine. During the Vietnam War, it became apparent that cyanoacrylates could be used to treat war wounds. Field surgeons began using the substance by spraying it over open wounds. This stopped bleeding instantly and allowed hurt soldiers to be transported to medical facilities for conventional treatment. This saved lives.

Moreover, in due course, additional medical uses developed: rejoining veins and arteries during surgery, sealing bleeding ulcers, punctures or legions, stopping uncontrollable bleeding of some soft ulcers, and use during dental surgery. Super Glue was a medical marvel, saving lives one dab at a time.

Super Glue wasn't all, however.

Dr Coover was an invention dynamo his entire career. He held over 460 patents by the end of his life. But he had always been an achiever. He studied chemistry at Hobart College in New York and then received a master's degree and doctorate from Cornell University. He took a job with Eastman Kodak Co. and stayed with them his entire professional life; after retirement he stayed on as a consultant.

Dr. Coover understood the business of inventing. He spent his life pushing the envelope, dreaming dreams... and changing the world, one discovery after another. He understood, too, that inventors need optimism. They needed good work habits... persistence... the ability to see things in a different perspective to get results. They needed good team members.... and always, always good humor. When you're going to places no one has ever been before there will be lots of errors... and therefore lots of humor required.

Dr. Harry Coover excelled in them all.

Along the way, his achievements garnered many awards and a lifetime of recognition. He deserved them all... Industrial Research Institute Medal Achievement Award, the Maurice Holland Award, the ACS Earl B. Barnes Award, and the AIC Chemical Pioneers Award. In 2004, he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame. And then in 2010, President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Dr. Harry Coover, dead at 94, March 26, 2011.

Dr. Coover is now gone. But his most famous invention -- Super Glue -- remains. It is a legacy that will stick... a useful legacy beloved of fixer-uppers everywhere. Coover always said he had a special place in his heart for his sticky invention, the invention that gave him the nickname "Mr.  Super Glue." And why shouldn't he?

Inventors are special people. They see the world as it can be... not just as it is. Of these inventors, Dr. Coover was one of the best. He will be missed, of course; such people always are. But he gave us his best... and that was ample.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc.
providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. 
Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com

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'If we can do this, we can do anything.' An appreciation for the life of Geraldine Ferraro, ex-vice presidential candidate.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

In 1984 a streaked-blond, peanut-butter-and-jelly-making mom made history... before she became an object lesson in unwittingly hurting the candidate and political party she was there to help.

Her name was Geraldine A. Ferraro, and now she is dead at 75, March 26, 2011 of complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer she had doggedly battled for 12 years.

Her day of days, July 11, 1984.

Arguably the most important day in at least her public life occurred July 11, 1984 when Walter "Fritz" Mondale made history by selecting U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his vice presidential running mate. At a stroke, she became the first major-ticket VP candidate... and the first national Italian-American candidate, two facts which proved to be critical in her startling ascent and the muddle, distractions, and stumblings which followed.

A presidential candidate's first important act is the selection of a vice presidential nominee.

Americans look to their presidential candidates to demonstrate executive problem-solving skills and leadership. But such a candidate, unless he is president himself (when he and his record automatically become the focus of the campaign) have a big problem which must be handled early and without error.

While they might have the skills to be  president and even an impressive list of important accomplishments and decisions should they, say, have been governor of a major state (like Reagan and California), voters are still being asked to gamble that a person who has never made presidential- level decisions can, in fact, make them,  not surprise the nation (as has happened often enough) with ineptitude; (like Jimmy Carter, the master of Oval Office missteps and pratfalls.)

The only person immune from this aspect of any given campaign is an incumbent. If there is such an incumbent, he automatically becomes the virtual sole focus of the campaign, pro or con. (Obama take note).  But that problem, in 1984, was Reagan's.

Mondale's problem was the usual one of an out-of-power party... showing America it would be better off with a new president it didn't know much about, instead of retaining  the incumbent they already knew, but who now stood before them no longer fresh, battle-scarred, and, of course, (whatever his achievements) with the usual legion of second-guessing detractors.

For the challengers the selection of the right VP candidate is crucial, couldn't be more important. Yet candidates often (quick, can you say Senator John McCain?) muff this business... and help derail their own campaigns, by turning what should have been a plus into an unexpected minus. America always notes this with alarm, incredulity, disdain, and usually dismissal.

"Fritz" Mondale... the nicest guy in the world... except for Ronald Reagan.

Mondale, Jimmy Carter's vice president, was by common repute a deeply honorable, good natured, well balanced man. He was the boy next door about, so the Democrats hoped, to get the prize ordinarily kept from the nice guys famously finishing last.

But he had a problem. "(Most) everybody loves Ronald" Ray-Gun. He needed a way to lay a finger on the guy and help America wise up. Because the Democrats thought Reagan unsympathetic to women's issues... they needed a candidate who could help galvanize women. Abigail Adams, wife of the second president, had written him "don't forget the ladies." Democrats didn't intend to. But how?

There she is... Mrs. America... Geraldine Ferraro.

She was pert, lively, credible, a real-life mom with real-life mom joys and dilemmas. She was also  a former Queens, New York prosecutor. There she battled the intractable problems of a great city which had them to spare; her daily diet rape, crimes against the elderly, child and wife abuse, so draining she later rote they caused her to develop an ulcer. And the liberal principles which, at her best, defined her. 

At the urging of Mario M. Cuomo, then lieutenant governor of New York and another "Italo" wanting friends for his  own ambitions, suggested she run for Congress. She did, ultimately winning 3 terms, learning fast the tribal rituals of the House of Representatives and, most of all, learning to work with its chiefs. This included House Speaker Thomas O'Neill. He liked her and helped her advance within the establishment to chairwoman of the Democratic Platform Committee, a plum assignment for understanding the party and its players nationwide. In due course, it was O'Neill who urged Mondale to select her as his running mate. It goes without saying that all Democratic congresswomen (they called themselves the A Team)  were in her corner, saying that Geraldine was what they needed to wow the women, and the nation.

"Fritz" bit... and made the calculated decision to put a woman on the ticket. Whether she was the best available woman, or not, will always be argued. She was a gal, she was a great, tireless campaigner with a feisty, upbeat style people liked... all to the good. But... and these were big buts... she knew nothing of the world beyond Queens (a problem most of its denizens have); she had no executive experience at all... and absolutely no foreign policy experience or expertise.

But Mondale selected her anyway. This turned his dull nominating convention into a thrilling celebration of women in America, their inexorable, soul-stirring progress to the heights of the nation. As Ferraro said "If we can do this, we can do anything." Millions felt uplifted, glasses raised, tears shed. It was a signature American event...

... And it began to fall apart within just hours as questions began to be raised about her husband's financial and tax records. There were nasty innuendos, too, about organized crime, god fathers, the paraphernalia of ethnic hate. Mondale learned the hard way that behind every successful woman candidate is a husband... the man he didn't select, but who could cause  an entire campaign to stumble. So it was with Ferraro and the man she loved. Thus, Ferraro and her connections became part of Mondale's problem... instead of the solution she had once appeared to be.

In the end, of course, she probably wasn't the ultimate cause for Mondale's demise. Ronald Reagan was. America loved Reagan (despite lapses and errors). And he was becoming, right before their eyes not merely a president but a statesman, a man they liked, trusted and revered. Fritz never had a chance, and of course Ferraro went down with him.

Now the mom from Queens is gone, a footnote in history, not a chapter. But I prefer to remember the best moment of her busy life: "If we can do this, we can do anything." She was absolutely right about that.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com


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OMG Oxford English Dictionary adds LOL and 1900 other entries.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

If you love the English language at all, you're always glad to hear that it's thriving, by far the language with the greatest number of words and senses (that is, how those words are used). We know this in large measure from the hard-working folks at Oxford English Dictionary, which rightly bills itself as "the definitive record of the English language."

March 24, 2011 OED announced its latest update, revising more than 1,900 entries and adding new words from across the dictionary. As chief editor, John Simpson, reported things are hopping at OED.

Item: the new OED website is a gigantic success. In January, 2011 alone over 43% of all OED entries were accessed online at least once.

The most commonly researched words were dictionary itself. Then love, followed closely by culture... and an old favorite, nice.

Item: Over 30% of OED has now been revised and updated.  285,403 out of a total of 796,591 "senses" have been revised.

Item: 45,437 new words and meanings have been added since the last update. That means, over 13% of the dictionary is entirely new.

Item: Of the updated senses, 27% are "scientific" -- or were at least considered to fall within the sections allocated to OED's scientific editors.

All this is good news for people in love with language generally and the English language in particular. The English language is growing at an unprecedented rate. This is at least partly because of the Internet and its galaxy of new time-saving (purist affronting) abbreviations.

A number of these abbreviations --  including LOL, OMG, and IMHO -- are now part of the official English language, but not necessarily because these initialisms are new and widely used.

OMG ("Oh my God" (or sometimes "gosh", "goodness", etc.) isn't a new initialism. According to OED, OMG first appeared in a 1917 personal letter.

LOL ("laughing out loud") had a previous life, starting in 1960 when it meant "little old lady".

Fascinating isn't it?

The minute you start digging into the OED,  not just new entries and senses either, you're hooked. Hours fly by as you get a peek inside the words that define who we are and how we communicate with each other. IMHO ("in my humble opinion") this can never be TMI ("too much information").

What does a word mean? Where does it originate?

OED is a language sleuth. Its daily, never ending task, is finding out what people are saying, what they mean by it, and where both word and meaning originated. It closely monitors language trends and decides when a word should be considered usual English vocabulary. Consider the new OED entry "wag".

In 2002, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that the staff at the England footballers' pre-World Cup training camp referred to the players' partners collectively as "Wags", from the initial letters of "wives and girlfriends."

The term then remained relatively dormant, except for a small and brief revival around the time of Euro 2004, before the 2006 World Cup in Germany saw an explosion of usage, as the women, including Victoria Beckham and Colleen Rooney had a high profile of their own. Debates raged in the newspapers about whether the women's presence was "distracting"  the footballers, alongside an equal fascination with what they were buying and wearing.

"Wag" quickly became a byword for the female partners of male professionals (in football and other spheres), often connoting a glamorous or extravagant lifestyle and a high media profile. By 2007 general readers could be expected to know what it meant... and the word was thus fast tracked to official OED standing.

OED makes a point of noting that it is quite uncommon for new words to reach a level of ubiquity in such a short time after their first appearance. What the rise of "wag" indicates is the importance retained by print media, even in this age of social networking. That surely cheered Fleet Street, where print media circulation and size have been steadily declining.

Other new words in the OED.

"Off the menu".

The culinary appetites of the English-speaking world are ever more diverse. So are the words needed to feed these appetites. The March, 2011 update sees OED adding such far-flung items as "banh mi" (also known as Vietnamese sandwich;  "taquito" (a crisp-fried Tex-Mex snack); "kleftiko" (a Greek dish of slow-cooked lamb. And many other food-related items.

"From a land down under".

OED aims to cover lexical developments from throughout the English- speaking world. In this update, a few new items from Australian English enter the dictionary for the first time: "flat white", a style of espresso drink with finely textured foamed milk; "tragic" (a boring or socially inept person, especially  one with an obsessive interest or hobby); and "yidaki", an Australian Aboriginal term for the musical instrument better known in English as a didgeridoo.

One more factoid.

This set of additions and revisions takes OED to the end of the letter R. In case you're wondering, the biggest entry in this range is "run". The verb alone contains 645 senses and is now the largest single entry in the dictionary; one sense is to run along... which is what I've got to do...

It's all about us.

Frankly, there are few books as riveting as OED. No wonder. It's ALL about us. It's about smart people spending the whole of their productive lives listening to what we say, how we say it, and who said it first. (Maybe you!) What could be better than that?

OED is as vital as the latest email, film, novel, or conversation in the deli. Reading OED you have a comfortable seat for the thing that interests us most about each other: what we are saying right now, new, different, outrageous, crazy, shrewd. It's all in OED.

That's why my OED and I are BBF ("best friends forever"). You should be, too.

About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. He is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Dr. Lant is happy to give all readers, 50,000 free guaranteed visitors for attending his live webcast today.
 
Webcast Time: 12:00 PM Pacific - 1:00 PM Mountain - 2:00 PM Central - 3:00 PM Eastern
Our Speaker will be: Dr. Jeffrey Lant
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com

Republished with author's permission by Sylvia Kinzie
http://WeBroadcastToYou.com


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