Taken from Tim Ferriss's excellent blog.
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blo...mon-words-you-should-stop-using-now/#more-104
Your thoughts define your life. As you think you shall become - those who have undergone this process while observing the changes consciously know it works.
When I wrote for a newspaper, I had to force myself to write clearly and concise. Once you realize that there are people reading and judging your writing, using simplistic and vague words is not an option. To state your idea coherently and effectively one must cut off the ambiguity and hit the perfect combination.
What other words should be eradicated from our vocabularies? What techniques can we adopt in our language that will change our thoughts?
Recently, I have pinpointed a few:
When looking at something out of your league - instead of saying "I can't have this/afford this" ask yourself "How can I afford this?"
When coming to the conclusion of "It can't be done" add unless and follow your thought train.
Do not fall victim to tautology. Business presentations are cluttered with people who do not know the correct answer but will go around and repeat things in various ways to sound like they know what they are talking about. 90% of business class presentations end up like this in my school.
What would you like to eliminate from your vocabulary/thought pattern?
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blo...mon-words-you-should-stop-using-now/#more-104
Words are thoughts.
The better we choose our words, the more we hone our thinking machine, and just like software, it’s a case of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. Thinking hard is pointless if we don’t use the right tools.
Think and speak with precision. Less is often more. Here are 10 common words I have observed to cause stress, depression, and conflict due to their vagueness. All of them are overused to the point of being meaningless. The solution? Stop using them and find more descriptive alternatives. I recommend focusing on removing one or two each week, even if just as an exercise.
In no particular order…
1. Happiness
2. Success
3. Should
4. Responsible
5. Realistic
6. Reasonable
7. Spiritual
8. Good/Right
9. Bad/Wrong
10. Moral
Do you love some of these? Most of us do. But… try and define them without using an equally vague synonym or a tautology.
But why do we love them?
Because they remove the heavy lifting of real thinking. These socially-accepted throwaway terms are crutches for unclear thinking, just like “thingâ€, “stuffâ€, or “interestingâ€â€“enemies of good writers worldwide. But the above 10 are much more dangerous, as they encourage us to compare, judge, or fool ourselves and others.
Trim the fat and cultivate your thinking with more creative and expressive word choice. As Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.â€
/end
Your thoughts define your life. As you think you shall become - those who have undergone this process while observing the changes consciously know it works.
When I wrote for a newspaper, I had to force myself to write clearly and concise. Once you realize that there are people reading and judging your writing, using simplistic and vague words is not an option. To state your idea coherently and effectively one must cut off the ambiguity and hit the perfect combination.
What other words should be eradicated from our vocabularies? What techniques can we adopt in our language that will change our thoughts?
Recently, I have pinpointed a few:
When looking at something out of your league - instead of saying "I can't have this/afford this" ask yourself "How can I afford this?"
When coming to the conclusion of "It can't be done" add unless and follow your thought train.
Do not fall victim to tautology. Business presentations are cluttered with people who do not know the correct answer but will go around and repeat things in various ways to sound like they know what they are talking about. 90% of business class presentations end up like this in my school.
What would you like to eliminate from your vocabulary/thought pattern?
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