We recently wrote that verbs are the parts of speech that become extinct the most quickly. Now we’ve learned that if you want to perform at your peak, at school or on the job, you should carefully consider how you discuss your past actions. Also, why are some words considered attractive while their synonyms are thought of as repugnant? And finally, some residents of Alaska have coined a new verb, based on moon dust!
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We’ve talked about the power of words. Now we want to tell you about the power of names?why people with some names succeed, while people with other names fail.
In LiveScience.com, Andrea Thompson quotes researcher Joseph Simmons as saying, “People tend to gravitate toward life outcomes that resemble their names. So for example, we know now that people named Jack are more likely to move to Jacksonville as compared to people named Phil, who are more likely to move to Philadelphia.” They are also more likely to choose romantic partners with similar names (so President Jack Kennedy was destined to marry Jackie) and to buy products that resemble their names.
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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Newswise – When you read your initials from left to right, do they form a word? If they do, is it a unattractive word like PIG or ZIT? Or is it an attractive word, like ACE, WOW or JOY? Scientists have seriously researched nominative determinism (and discovered that, for instance, people with the last name of “Doctor” actually DO tend to take up medical careers), so they wanted to know if having a bad “monogram” is detrimental to our health.
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The Washington Post publishes a yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply new meanings for old words and create new ones. Some of these ought to become part of our vocabularies for 2003! Keep reading to find out this year’s winning entries.
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