1. If you can't think of the word, instead of going "um, um, um" or "What's it called again?" give your interlocutor some kind of a hint - whatever kind of word association is currently going on in your brain. "That actress, that blonde lady who was married to that really ugly guy…" or "not mitigated, like the opposite of mitigated - like reducing positive impact the same way that mitigate means reducing negative impact". Then your interlocutor can help come up with the word or might arrive at the right answer instead of the whole conversation being stalled by um um um. It works - we've all been in a conversation where one person goes "That guy who made that other movie with the skinny guy" and the other person knows EXACTLY what they're talking about.
2. The answer to "Where can I buy something like that?" is never "Anywhere!" You need a narrower definition of "anywhere," since your interlocutor clearly has no frame of reference. A productive answer is "I got mine at Winner's, but I've also seen them at Shopper's or even some of the bigger Loblaws." Then they have some specific places to work with plus a general idea of the range of places that will sell the thing in question.
3. If the name of something has changed, you need to mention what it's best known as in collective consciousness, and you need to do this in the headline or the lede. People recognize Skydome even when they don't recognize Rogers Centre. People recognize Stelco even when they don't recognize U.S. Steel. People recognize Dominion or A&P even when they don't recognize Metro. If they recognize the thing being talked about, they'll read your article. If they don't, they'll skip over it.
3 comments:
I agree with all.
But following your tradition of focusing on you-know-what...
People recognize Stelco even when they don't recognize U.S. Steel.
this seems backwards to me. U.S. Steel is more than 100 years old. In the US, before the wave of de-industrialization, its name was always used as a synonym for Big Corporate. As in, "Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel". I never heard the name Stelco until this year.
Stelco is big in southern Ontario. It's been around for like a hundred years and there are families that have worked there for generations. It was taken over by U.S. Steel a couple of years back, but Stelco still pings and U.S. Steel doesn't. (Like Dominion and Metro.) Joe Average hadn't even heard of U.S. Steel before they took over Stelco. A headline saying that U.S. Steel is shutting down plants will get skimmed over unless you're directly affected. A headline saying that Stelco is shutting down plants will get read by anyone whose family or loved ones have ever been involved with Stelco.
So it's a Canadian vs US thing. Got it.
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