| Previous Issue |
WordCrafters Home |
Back Issues Index |
Next Issue |
Published by Bob Kelly
Resident Wordsmith and Quotemeister
WordCrafters, Inc.
www.wordcrafters.info
Providing the Right Word for Speakers, Writers, Ministry Leaders and Business Executives – since 1979!
________________________________________________________________________
Volume 2 – Number 2 February 2004
In This Issue:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHATS YOUR WOMP?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dale Dauten, speaker, author and syndicated columnist, was the featured speaker at last months Annual Meeting of the Arizona Small Business Association (ASBA). The author of The Laughing Warriors, and a founder of "The Innovators Lab: Unchain Your Brain," hell be playing a leading role in ASBAs theme for 2004: "Year of Innovation." In his talk, he mentioned that hes coined a new word: WOMP, which is an acronym for Word-of-Mouth Potential, and described the power of WOMP. "Whats the WOMP of your business?" he asked. Its a good question for all of us to consider.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPEAKING OF ACRONYMS
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of us have probably heard of so-called NIMBYs, those folks who tend to strongly protest something or other that may or may not move into their neighborhood. The word, of course, is an acronym for "Not In My Back Yard." However, you may not be as familiar with their more vociferous kinfolk, known as NIMTOs, NOPEs and BANANAs, which stand for, respectively, as, "Not In My Term in Office," "Not On Planet Earth," and "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything."
Acronyms do come in handy at times, but be careful about using them in your media releases, books, articles, promotional literature, etc., without explaining what they mean. Otherwise, they tend to confuse your readers.
One of my favorite acronyms is GOTCHAA, which stands for "Group Organized to Commence and Hasten the Annihilation of Acronyms."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE QUOTE CORNER (Journalism/Media)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journalism is literature in a hurry.
Matthew Arnold
Treat the media as you would any other watchdog. Stay calm. Be friendly. Let them sniff your hand and never turn your back.
Zack Burnett
Wooing the pressis an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal, but the tiger always eats last.
Maureen Dowd
The chief danger which threatens the influence and honor of the press is the tendency of its liberty to degenerate into license.
James A. Garfield
Serious, careful, honest journalism is essential, not because it is a guiding light but because it is a form of honorable behavior, involving the reporter and the reader.
Martha Gellhorn
Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.
Henry Anatole Grunwald
Journalism, like history, is certainly not an exact science.
John Gunther
The press is like the peculiar uncle you keep in the atticjust one of those unfortunate things.
G. Gordon Liddy
Being a journalist is simply wonderful. It is a lifelong license to follow that most basic human traitcuriosity. It is permission to probe and delve into whatever interests you, as thoroughly or as superficially as you like, and then move on.
Robert MacNeil
The media are far more powerful than the President in creating public awareness and shaping public opinion, for the simple reason that the media always have the last word.
Richard M. Nixon
Journalists do not live by words alone, although sometimes they have to eat them.
Adlai Stevenson
Journalisms ultimate purpose [is] to inform the reader, to bring him each day a letter from home and never to permit the serving of special interests.
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
The only qualities for real success in journalism are rat-like cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability. The ability to steal other peoples ideas and phrasesis also invaluable.
Nicolas Tomalin
When a reporter sits down at the typewriter, hes nobodys friend.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUINTESSENCE THE FIFTH ELEMENT!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Greeks had a word for it. They called it pempte ousia. To the Romans, it was quinta essentia. In ancient times, these names were given to a concept that attempted to explain what was otherwise unexplainable.
The Greeks and Romans, and their counterparts in other civilizations, believed everything in the world was made up of four basic elements: air, earth, fire and water. That theory seemed to work, except with humans. Man was obviously something more, something that set him apart from the rest of creation.
Therefore, the logic went, there had to be a fifth element, a quinta essentia, that gave man the power to think and talk, and that caused him to seek after God. Of all the species that have ever inhabited the earth, homo sapiens alone builds altars. No matter how primitive or how advanced the culture, mankind worships someone or something, driven by this innate element, this quinta essentia.
Over the centuries, the word "quintessence" (from the Latin) has taken on broader meanings. Its definitions include: the consummate instance; the most perfect manifestation of a quality or thing; the purest form of anything; and the transcendent specimen of a given class.
In todays disposable, biodegradable, assembly-line, cookie-cutter society, has the quality of quintessence, this "consummate instance," this "most perfect manifestation," this "transcendent specimen," been lost, sacrificed on the altars of mediocrity and imitation?
Not so, at least not to authors Betty Cornfeld and Owen Edwards. In their wonderful book, Quintessence: The Quality of Having It, they claim that "Quintessence lives, as vitally as ever; it's just harder to discern amid the undistinguished plenty of our times."
Cornfeld and Edwards also note that, "With the advent of mass production, the odds against quintessence grow and have continued to growSince the Industrial Revolution it has become possible to assume that quintessence is inconsistent with mass production, and the premise is hard to deny."
Just as the ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the four basic elements of air, earth, fire and water, so many of us today seem to focus on the four elements of volume, profits, cash flow and net worth as the ingredients of success. Little thought seems to be given to the "fifth element," the quintessential, the quality that separates the very good from the very best.
Today, in our personal and professional lives, can we become that "perfect example," that "transcendent specimen?" Quintessence is a rare and multi-faceted jewel, "always there to be found. It is the good news, shining through the bad."
We agree with Cornfeld and Edwards that: "Although quintessence cannot be found in abundance in our claptrap age, its ancient voice still whispers beneath modern exteriors and we do well to recognize it and seek it out."
Let the quest begin!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SMILE AWHILE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Moving Speech
Eleven people, 10 men and a woman, were lifted from the roof of a burning building by grabbing a rope dropped by a rescue helicopter. It quickly became clear that the rope wasnt quite strong enough to carry 11 people, and they realized one had to let go, or theyd all perish.
They were unable to decide on whod make the ultimate sacrifice, and there were no volunteers. Finally, the woman gave a very touching speech. "Ill let go," she said, "because, as a woman, Im used to giving up everything for my husband and kids, or for men in general, and for always making sacrifices with little in return."
As soon as she finished, all the men began clapping their hands.
(Our thanks to our good friend, George Weinwurm, for sending along this gem.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A number of our readers have expressed interest in seeing previous issues of The KellyGram, and were pleased to announce that theyre all available on our website: www.wordcrafters.info.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A FINAL WORD
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Happy Valentines Day to all our readers. We leave you with this profound and touching thought (with apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson): "Tis better to have loved a short girl than never to have loved a tall."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Privacy Policy:
Your privacy is very important to us. We assure you that under no circumstances will we share, distribute, publish, give away or sell our mailing lists or other information about you to any other party.
Reprint Permission:
You may copy or distribute excerpts from The KellyGram by using the following credit line: "The following is taken from the [insert date] of The KellyGram, and is used with permission." We will appreciate receiving copies of any publications in which you use materials contained herein. Thank you.
Subscribe/Unsubscribe:
If this issue was forwarded to you and you would like to receive it regularly at no cost, please email us at list@wordcrafters.info. If you no longer wish to receive emails from us, please click on the link below.
If you know of others who might like to receive The KellyGram, please forward this issue to them.
Send The KellyGram to a friend:
Email Address:
Comments/Questions:
Your comments and questions are always welcome. Please contact us at info@wordcrafters.info or call Bob Kelly at (480) 895-7617.
© 2004 by Bob Kelly. All rights reserved.
| Previous Issue |
WordCrafters Home |
Back Issues Index |
Next Issue |