What Is Color Picker?

A software or program to create a desired color scheme? Well, not really. Color picker is a small wonderful piece of software which allows you to ‘pick’ a color anywhere on your screen. Yes! I mean just about anywhere on your monitor! You wanted to know the exact color of your toolbar? This is made possible with the magical color picker, which has been conceived by iconico.com.

Color Picker For KDE Linux Only?

Color picker, ideally, is for Windows-based operating systems. But the open-source community is so great that there exists a Color Picker for Linux systems too. But here there’s a catch. The Nix color picker is only for linux based on KDE desktop. For example, on Mandriva linux you just have to right-click on your toolbar and select color picker from the available executable programs ‘Add-able‘ on your panel or toolbar.

Gpick - An Advanced Color Picker For Gnome Desktop - Ubuntu!

In the open-source world, everything is possible and magical. There’s now an advanced color picker, named as Gpick, for Linux systems based on Gnome Desktop, for example, Ubuntu Linux!

How To Install Gpick On Ubuntu?

It’s as simple as downloading the .deb package of Gpick at linuxine.com
Once downloaded, you just have to double-click on it, provide your user password to proceed to the installation setup and voila!

How To Use Gpick On Ubuntu?

Once installed, gpick will most probably be placed in your Applications>Accessories>gpick.
Steps:
1) Launch the program
2) Select any color area on your screen that you want to know the value of
3) Let your mouse pointer remain still on that point or area
4) Now click on your Space Bar - The color value has been snapped and saved!
5) Right click on the color you find on the polygonal shape and click on Copy to clipboard. You will find your color values there. Enjoy!

Who Uses Color Picker Or Gpick?

Color Picker or gpick are mostly precious to people indulged in web design and graphics, where the need to know the exact Hex color and name of a particular color area is vital.

Most often while writing, some people are confused when it comes to capital letters; which word should start with a capital letter and under what circumstances?! This is because Capital Letter usage is mostly done by intuition by most of us; do you know exactly when to use capital letters? If yes, I invite you to see if you got it right - if no, you have come to the right place, continue your reading below.

When To Use Capital Letters?

1) Beginning of a sentence

This is the very basic and classical usage of capital letters in the english language and any language since old times.

2) When using proper nouns

E.g:
Wakish, Duffy, London, Manchester, November Jupiter, etc.

3) For adjectives formed from proper nouns

E.g:
Elizabethan poets, Scotch whisky, the French language

4) When using ’special proper nouns’

Please note that ‘special nouns‘ is not an official word class, but it is just how I’m personally tagging the following:
E.g:
God, Christ, Bible, Trinity, etc.

5) For a pronoun or possessive adjective applying to ‘God’

E.g:
“They trusted in God that He would save His people”

6) For the first person singular, I

But this does NOT apply for ‘me, my, etc..’

7) For personification (often used in poetry)

E.g:
- If Winter comes, can spring be far behind? (Shelley)

8.) For the chief words in title of people, books, plays, etc.

E.g:
Elizabeth the Second, Alfred the Great, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Tale of Two Cities

9) For salutations or forms of addressing (often in letters)

E.g:
Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc.

10) In letters, for the greeting and complimentary close

E.g:
Dear Sir,…
Yours faithfully,…

11) When using abbreviations of degrees, titles, etc..

E.g:
B.Sc ==> Bachelor of Science
Q.C ==> Queen’s Counsel
M.P ==> Member of Parliament

12) For the opening words of direct speech

E.g:
“Blogging is my passion as well as my job”, said Darren Rowse

But the capital letter should not be repeated in the second part of a broken quotation:

“I am working hard now,” he said, “in order to provide for my old age.”

13) For the first word in each line of poetry

E.g:
First liner..
Second liner..
Third liner..

But this convention, as far as I remember, is however being disregarded by modern poets. (New generation, new styles)

Have I missed Any Other Uses Of Capital Letters?

If you think so, please do use the comment form below to add to this list, thanks.

Certain words tend to create confusions in the way they are written. Why is this? I have tried to think about it and I came with the reasons below.

Why Are Words Mis-Spelt?

1) Knowing more than one language == writing confusion

Words are written in different forms in different languages; for instance, for a person (like me) who makes frequent usage of french and english in my daily life, I tend to get confuse when writing some words. Let’s take the example of the word ‘enemy‘.
In english it is written as ‘enemy‘ and in french it is written as ‘ennemi‘ - so I used to write it as ‘ennemy‘.

Possible Solution:
From my experience, I had made a list of words which I tend to write wrongly and I tried to memorise them and at times doing the homework of writing them several times. This method proved to have been useful to me. (May be you have another solution? If so, please use the comment form below to let me know..)

2) Some people simply do not put enough effort in learning to write well.

What about people who know only one language? I have relatives living across different parts of the globe. When I see my cousins from France or England or U.S write, I see they do make mistakes (at times too silly a mistake) despite the fact that their written language is their mother tongue. Then why those mistakes?! The simple answer to this is: ‘These people are careless with the language, they are not enough attentive and not putting enough effort to learn their language. (Read Why Writing?)

3) Some words are written differently from their pronounciation.

4) Stop writing == emergence of poor writing

There is a fourth point which I have figured out. When a person is very good at a language but has not been writing for a long period of time, he/she still gets affected (I have experienced this myself). As goes the saying: “practice makes perfect” - You have to constantly keep in touch with writing too. (And this is one of the reasons why I blog )

List Of Words Commonly Mis-Spelt

Commonly Mis-Spelt Words

On this blog, I repeatedly preach that it is very crucial you know the basics of the english language and to strengthen your vocabulary to help you write good english. But the key part of this language system is having the right dictionary. Regular use of your dictionary will help you develop your personal vocabulary book much healthier. It is vital that you keep a good dictionary handy. But how to know which dictionary is the desired one? Continue reading..

Characteristics Of A Good Dictionary - The Right Dictionary’s Habits

1) Tells you how words are spelt
2) Tells you how words are pronounced
3) Gives you the different meanings of words
4) Gives examples of how the words are used under their respective context
5) Gives you the plurals of nouns
6) Tells you whether a noun is countable or not
7) Gives you the synonyms and the antonyms of words
8.) Gives you words derived from the same root or family
9) Gives you the comparative and superlative forms of adjectives
10) Gives you the past tense and participle forms of verbs
11) Tells you the syllable of a word to stress
12) Tells you the origin of some foreign words
13) Gives you the meanings of useful phrases
14) Tells you the level of usage of a certain word
15) Tells you whether a certain word is a slang word, a taboo word, a formal word, an informal word, an archaic word, a colloquial expression, etc.

If you see a dictionary providing all those above points, it is a good candidate to be considered as the right or good dictionary. For instance, I can convincingly recommend you to use The Concise Oxford Dictionary; I have been using it for the last 6+ years and it has been (and is) a great tool to enhance my english language.

Success is something which every single person strives for, irrespective of the career path one takes. Some people achieve success in their endeavours by relentless effort and determination while others seek motivation and inspiration out of successful people’s advice, words or quotes to mould their own success. In this respect, this article brings you a series of words and quotes which arise inspiration and motivation for success.

Inspiration And Motivational Quotes For Success

1) Henry David Thoreau

I know of no more encouraging a fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

2) Ramayana

The wise say that unlimited enthusiasm, efficiency and refusal to accept defeat are the virtues that lead to sure success in any venture.

3) Henry Ford

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress and working together is success.

4) Benjamin Disraeli

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

5) Emerson

There is no defeat except from within. There is really no insurmountable barrier, except your own inherent weakness of purpose.

6) Joseph Conrad

Facing it-always facing it-that is the way to get through.

7) Barbara Hatcher

Measure success not by what you have done, but what you could do.

Last time during the explanation on “What is a punctuation“, I mentioned that the uses of commas will be elaborated in a later session and this is exactly what this article is focussed on; so fasten your sealt belts.

What Is A Comma?

→ A comma is a sign or punctuation mark which denotes the shortest pause and the least amount of separation between words, phrases or clauses.

Importance Of Commas

→ The comma is the most frequently used punctuation mark and has an array of uses.
Is this a coincidence, is this a chance?
Of course not! As I previously told you, a punctuation mark helps to translate or convey the exact voice inflexion from spoken to written words. And when anyone talks, there’s always a series of short pauses. Now by definition, a comma marks a short pause.

Now be careful to not overuse commas, that is, do not use too much of it in your sentence. Why? It will spoil the meaning of your sentence and making it confusing for your readers. A sentence with many unecessary commas often leads to several interpretation.

When To Use Commas?

Your common sense and the desire to make your meaning clear, will usually guide you where a pause is needed. Just try to say aloud what you want to write and see for yourself where you make obvious pauses. Everything comes with practice and maturity of your writing skills.

General Uses Of Commas - When Are Commas USed?

1) To separate words in a list or series

E.g:
→ Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres were the top three players nominated for the FIFA world player of the year.

2) To mark off direct speech

E.g:
→ Aliya said, “He’s the handsome I was telling you about the other day.”

3) To mark off or separate expressions like: “however, infact, of course, therefore, after all, indeed, for instance“, from the rest of a sentence

E.g:
→ Indeed, Manchester United won the prestigious title of the world best football club.
→ It was, however, too expensive for our budget.

4) To show Ellipsis

E.g:
→ You may go your way; I, mine.
→ He will soon succeed; you, never.

5) To mark off question tags.

E.g:
→ The new year’s eve was great, isn’t it?

6) To separate short co-ordinate clauses

E.g:
→ Please run upstairs, go to my room, get me my bag.
→ I came, I saw, I conquered.
→ When it rained, we got wet.

7) To mark off nouns in apposition

E.g:
→ Problogger, Darren Rowse, is very much loved and solicited in the blogosphere.

8.) To separate clauses in a compound sentence.

E.g:
→ Mickels Rea was very busy with his first official album, so he did not come to the last Star Academy get-together party.

Pitfalls:
In Complex Sentences, the comma should not be used when the omission of the Relative Clause would make the Principal Clause meaningless or would change its meanings. (Explanation of the red words in a later session)

E.g:
Consider the following sentence:
→ “Shakespeare plays which were written in the years 1604-1609 are all tragic and sombre.”

⇒ Now, if commas marked off the clause as follows:
“Shakespeare plays, which were written in the years 1604-1609, are all tragic and sombre.”

This would completely change the whole meaning of the sentence and would thus convey the main meaning of: “Shakespeare plays are all tragic and sombre.”

Is this what the original sentence wanted to say? No, the original meant that only those written in the years 1604-1609 were tragic.

Got it? So, be careful when using commas.

Last Words..

There are other different ways in which commas are used, but I have brought forward only the most common and important ones. Commas can be used as per your intuition since different people and writers essentially have varied styles - but provided you convey the right meaning without ambiguities. In any case, I would to love to hear your comments below..

Good grammatical construct is one of the pillars of a successful GP paper. Writing correctly also implies the right use of verbs in sentences. When it comes to verbs, some students get confused with the usage of past participles; a common complaint from teachers and examiners alike.

Why Is The Past Participle So Confusing For Students?

The answer to this question perhaps lies in the polymorphic use of the past participle itself. That is, the past participle can be used in several ways namely: nouns, part of a verb, adjectives and adverbs. As you have guessed, past participles have the ability of denoting a complete action.

But you should bear in mind that past participles cannot be used as the main verb of a sentence. And this is where most students fail to anticipate.

Errors At Glance

Consider the following sentence:
1) “The global warming has long been forsee as a known threat to earth.”
2) “This truth cannot be bore any longer.”

What are wrong with the above sentences?
Sentence 1: forsee should have been written as “foreseen”
Sentence 2: bore should have been written as “borne” or “born”

My Opinion On Why Those Mistakes Happen

As per my experience as a gp student and class orator (some 5 years ago) my conclusion as why students make those mistakes are:

1) Student are not aware of the transformation of certain verbs into other tenses like past tense and past participles. (In the case of the “bore” in sentence 2.)
Some verbs have uncommon patterns in the transformation from their present tense into past tense and past particple.

Eg:

* bear -> bore -> borne (or born)
* see -> saw -> seen
* write -> wrote -> written

These ‘weird’ verbs are, I believe, not strongly grasped by students since ‘common’ verbs usually just take ‘ed’ or ‘d’ or just remain the same:

* describe -> described -> described
* arrive -> arrived -> arrived
* read -> read -> read

Advice:
You have to learn and be aware of the different categories of verbs and their different tenses. I remember in my early primary school, we used to learn by heart large table of verbs in all their tenses and this has been a lot of help to me in my later language usage. If you have not been able to do it at that time, do it now!

2) Students are not concentrated enough when writing.
You have to care what you are writing because the examiners do not care to give marks for such foolishness. Examiners are here to give marks, make it easy for them and for yourself!

3) Students write in a haste, thus forcing errors.
This is a fact due to time restrictions. But this is not an excuse! It is your duty and home work to train your writing skills alongside with your writing speed. The examiner does not care if you write quickly or slowly, what they care is ‘what you are writing’ and allocate marks.

So as a general paper student, take a moment to think about what I have explained and help yourself gain good marks. If you have any suggestion or you don’t agree with my point of view, you are free to use the comment form below to express your opinion.

Essay Words With Meaning And Sentences To help You

1) Scalded => burnt by hot liquid or steam

Jirel took the scalded girl to hospital.

2) Spooky => scary

The old house was huge, dusty and spooky.

3) hundle huddle => crowd together

The girls huddled together in fear.

4) shabbily => poorly dressed with worn-out clothes

The old man, lying at the post office, was shabbily dressed.

5) advent => arrival

The advent of the iPhone 3G has created a big craze among youngsters and adults alike.

6) loathe => dislike greatly

Some travellers actually like them while others loathe them.

7) nutritious => high food value

Above all, the daily food you eat may not be nutritious.

8.) dismay => shame consternation

We starred at the teacher in great dismay.

Read Previous Editions:

→ Enrich English Language

No Contact Form Is A Big Frustration For Your Visitors

For the last couple of hours, I have been so frustrated to see some reputable web entrepreneur or whatever the “pro-x” they call themselves, they do not have a point of contact. So I have to scan their whole website(s) and blog(s); wasting my time. How can such people don’t have a contact form? That’s so un-pro and lame if you ask me. These guys are at several places and they don’t even provide an easy way to contact them, common what the hell are you doing?

Don’t Make Yourself Sound Like A Moron

I think people who do not provide a contact point are either:
1) too shy or worried when people contact them
2) does not care if people want to say something to them
3) too lazy to provide one
4) considers themselves too much important and hence cannot bother what others need to say - If you fall in this one, I will have to say you are a moron and bias person. The holygrail of an online success is ‘proper networking’ and to network people need to contact you; it is as simple as that.

If you don’t want to sound like any of these type of unhealthy categories, you know what to do.

Sensible Webmasters Will Always Provide A Point Of Contact

And this is also common with several webmasters. If you want to have an online presence, be sure to provide a comfortable and straight-forward way for people to contact you, an example is my contact form. It is visible, easy, simple, direct and fast.

I hope if I have conveyed the message to people reading this - be easily accesible, provide a contact form on your website!

It has been a great event, I have been watching them since the very first weeks of the “Star Ac“, as the french calls it. This 8th edition had some wonderful contestants, it was just “sublime”. The event featured many famous star artists for each rounds, namely Céline Dion, Madonna, Ricky Martin, 50cents, Avril Lavigne, Anastacia, Beyonce, Lorie, Jonas Brothers, Craig David, Sheryfa luna, Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Christophe Mae, amongst others.

What Is Star Academy?

Quoted from Wiki:

Star Academy is a French reality tv show produced by the Dutch company Endemol, based on the Spanish format called Operación Triunfo. It consists of a contest of young singers. It spawned an equally successful show in Quebec called Star Académie. It is broadcast on TF1. At the end of each season, selected contestants go on tour around France, Morocco, Switzerland, Belgium, Tunisia, and other French-speaking countries. The contestants stay in the Dammarie-lès-Lys castle : The Vives-Eaux castle. The reality show is hosted by Nikos Aliagas.

Watch The Video Of Star Acedemy 2008 Finals online Now - Star Ac 8

Free Download Of Star Acedemy 2008 Finals With Mickels, Alice And Star Artists Featured

==> Just click here to download free video of Star Acedemy 2008 Finals as seen above - good quality video!

The 2 Finalists Mickels And Alice Work Hard

- Both Mickels and Alice were not expected to be finalists based on their starting performances. I remember that Alice was saved by public voting 5 times! But since then she has been working seriously and she just kept getting better and better, just as Mickels. been watching their daily work on “Canale Evenement” - which gives you live videos of almost ALL the ‘doings’ of contestants, even when they are sleeping.

Anyway, it was a great moment watching Star Academy 2008 for all these weeks (16 weeks?). Seeing their progress and daily nitty-gritty, coupled with the advice of so many experienced artists, it’s just inspiring and motivating - if you can dream it and put in the required effort, you can surely be a winner!

My favorite was infact Anissa, she has a wonderful voice and she’s just gorgeous; ‘tres belle francaise’. How about you, have you been watching them, who was your favorite?

Today while reading and writing my previous inspirational articles on Dreams Quotes By 2 Famous People, I felt a strange motivation deep inside me and I started to remember the deep moments that I had when I was still at school and university and which I still feel somehow at points in my life, including in blogging; I thought of sharing this moment with you since perhaps you might be feeling or living the same thing as me.

Having Good Hidden Skills Can Be A Bad Thing If…

As we grow up and during the course of our life, most of us become conscious of our own capabilities and limits. We start realizing that we have hidden talents or skills inside us. While this is a good thing, experience has told me that this can actually be a bad thing also. You might be saying what the hell? Having good skills is a bad thing? No, it’s not having it that is bad, it is ‘the frame of mind that this special trait shapes over time’ which is responsible in diverting us from obvious success if we are not careful enough about ourselves and taking actions at the right time.

How Is Our Special Talent Dangerous To Us - Side Effects

At the beginning, we will find ourself leading the class or group and being the number one for some time. As time passes, we start getting overconfident about our own performance. We start getting into the game of ‘the rabbit and the tortoise‘. We start getting lazy with the idea and lame excuse that we will catch up later on - each time we postpone things. Alas! That’s where the danger zone starts. Ok, let’s say that for some another period of time we might be able to catch up, but as the level of our education or work increases we find ourself lost in the middle of nowhere without realising it. The result is that we are lagging behind everytime and ending up seeing our mates performing a lot better than us, though knowing that we are worth more than what they are achieving. We begin developing a psychological block and a stressful mind which is now full of uncertainties and doubts on our own capabilities. In most cases, there’s a big chance that this behaviour is masked under our laziness which is now our best friend. “Damm, it’s so good to sleep, it’s so good to watch tv…, learning? Not now, we have all the time to catch up.” That’s how things goes.

How To Know When We Are Going Astray? Symptoms

1) We are no more the number one, or among the best, in the class/group as we used to be
2) We are honestly (no jealousy here) frustrated a lot when we see others doing far better than us
3) We are lagging behind for things which appear so easy to do
4) We are digging our head with anxiety as we are not finding any success in life

Explanation Of Why Your Team Mates Perform Even Without Talent

In our case, there’s a big chance that we are now late as compared to the others. The most important thing is that you try to think about why you are not performing. If you are reading this article, chances are that you have taken conscious and want to overcome the situation. Okay, I will save you time here by explaining to you what I have realised with time; You should understand and put into your mind the following reasoning:

→ Success is NOT about having skills or talent. Success is about hardwork, practice, practice and practice with a will to perform.
→ Without practice, you will go nowhere except in the abyss (failure) whatever the degree of your skills or talent.

Therefore with the above reasoning, even if you are talented, you cannot perform without actually putting the required effort. Let’s say that your classmates are somewhat less talented than you, but they are practicing everyday on a regular basis. Now I hope you have at least heard this quote once: “practice makes perfect“. Despite the fact that those guys are not good at something, they will eventually perform because they are constantly doing the right thing, that is learning and practising. Out of 100 marks, you can only get 100. However talented you are, you cannot get more than 100points. So your mates are doing just that, that is to aim at the 100 points which is all achievable with enough practice.

It’s Time For Action - Your Talent Is Now Your Lethal Weapon

Alright, you have now understood your situation, so it’s now high time for action. At this stage, you cannot make any excuses to yourself nor waste time. If you haven’t got time to do it right, you now don’t have time to do it wrong either! Step out of your darkside, bring out the motivated and performing instinct inside you, start kicking the ass of those competitions/papers. Let’s say you have X hours or X days remaining till the start of the exams (or whatever assessing occasion), give the best of yourself each and every minute till X arrives. Lay out a plan first, plan what you have to learn/know. Observe and find out what part or pieces are most likely to be assessed - you be able to do that. And start practising. Now if you are the type of person that I have tried to portray in this article, you will surely come up with your own unique way of preparing yourself for the battle (each one of us have different methods as I have observed in real life). But whatever your techniques, there’s one key thing to remember:- “Always, and I mean it, always keep up hope even till the last second - the hope that you will do thing positive and that you will succeed whatever it takes you.” This is very realistic because for example, at some point in my life, I had onnly 1 day to pass an exam which was a tough one with notes of the length of a big huge book. I gave all my best that whole day and guess what? I succeeded the exam with an A (keep reading below). But you should also keep in mind that you need to have a good preparation of mind and physically also (spare energy) - be strong and convincing with yourself.

Biggest Part - Celebrate And Reward Youself!

Now another very crucial part is to celebrate each and every winning battle. I remember when I came back home on that day, I knew I have done my utmost best and that I would score at least a B. That was a tremendous satisfaction for me, keeping in mind my situation. I celebrated my joy. And after the results officially came out, I once again celebrated with a bigger heart and motivation. The key point is that you need to reward yourself for every satisfaction you give yourself!

But You Will Not Be Able To Compete With This Other Type Of Talented People - Be Warned!

As I said above, I scored an A while some of my classmates who practised since the beginning, got a B+. But there were also a couple of mates who actually scored A+. Huuumm, who are those type of guys? Well, I believe there are four categories of people:
1) People who are not talented and do not even want to try to perform
2) People who are not talented but do achieve success with perseverance and practice
3) People who are talented, but who are lazy and do only on the average or below
4) People who are both talented and have a good will of peseverence, achieving their full potential successfully.

So, the guys who scored the A+, was actually the type described in 4) above. You cannot compete with these guys unless you step-out and face them since day 1.

Side Note

I don’t claim to be a genius nor do I want to show any arrogance or whatever. Please accept this article as my humble will to share my experience with you because I know what it is like to be in failure and sadness and wasting your best traits, when you could have secured a better seat. In this respect, I want to encourage you to take the right action at the right time to prevent yourself from ruining your own success my friend.

I will end up with another of my own quotes :- “Success is not the vehicle to reach your destination [success], but a weapon to help you reach it faster and more comfortably.” - by Wakish

Dreams Quotes By 2 Famous People

1) By Robert Kennedy

- “Some people look at things as they are and ask why. We dream things as they never were and ask why not”

2) Henry David Thoreau

- “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours… If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the fundation under them!”

Verbs and prepositions have always been linked together in the construction of a simple sentence. I hence call them this way: verbs and prepositions are the husband and wife, for there cannot be a shining house without a couple. (That’s my own quote ). Each verb has only a set or one compatible preposition(s); ideally each verb is associated with a preposition, but there are also some cases where a verb might dwell with more than one preposition.

This is the first edition that I brought forward in this series of “Phrases With Prepositions” and I will start with the alphabet A and upto Z. But trust me this is a whole lot of them and yet they are very crucial in helping you write better and confidently. I will show you what verb goes with what preposition(s) and also forming a sentence or phrase with them. It should definitely be a good collection in your database of “Learn Good Writing Skills by starting with the Basics of the English Language“. So here we go…

5 Verbs And Prepositions With A Sentence

1) Abondon to

Having no other choice, the King abandoned his ministers to the fury of the of the mob.

2) Abide by

As a honest student, you should always abide by the rules and regulations of your institution.

3) Able to

Having gone bankrupt, the manager is not able to pay his employees right now.

NOTE:
Ideally, we do not say “is not able to”, instead we say “is unable to” - This is much better english. But for the sake of the subject of this article, I have used “is not able”

4) Absorb in

Tom Sawyer was so absorbed in his day dreams that he completely forgot about Mr Dobbins’ class.

5) Abhorrence of (abhorrence means ’strong dislike’ or ‘disgust’)

Most sentient women have an abhorrence of lizards

I was reading an article where my blogo-friend, Jirel, was talking about his own past experience on how First impression is the last impression. While commenting, I turned up to be writing more than a whole paragraph which is quite enormous for a handy quick comment. Hence, I finally decided to write an article. Let’s get started…

Why Do You Need To Make A First Good Impression

Since my early primary schooling, I remember my dad talking about ‘making a first good impression is worth a lifetime relationship’. At that tender age, I was not too attentive on what he was talking about. But as I grew up, his words and repetitive ’speech’ started to make more sense. A good first impression is very important in any field, whether in friendship, dating, professional world or even a one-time unexpected meeting with someone. You never know when a split-second glance at your personality (or a very short conversation) can change the meaning of your whole world. Even online, while chatting, a first good impression is crucial in establishing a strong relationship. But different ‘meeting’ with someone will imply different level of approach, for example, meeting a professional guy would mean that you should have a formal approach.

But whatever the nature of the ‘meeting’, there are some obvious general tips which applies as we will see. Helping someone make a good opinion on you forms a key ingredient to a successful life; it’s just a matter of the opinion you give and the attitude you adopt to attract success. You cannot undo a first impression, nor will you get a second chance to create the deep impact and perception that a first impression triggers.

How Can A First Good Impression Help You?

A good first impression can help you get:
→ respect and trust
→ a job
→ a girl/wife
→ famous
→ friendship
→ so many unexpected golden opportunities

How To Make A First Good Impression?

Meeting with someone generally last a few 10 to 30 seconds or just a glimpse. So keeping this in mind, I will list the most relevant points first:-

1) Always keep a smile on your face, have a welcoming face - Have a good body language
2) Always dress up properly in whatever cloth/outfit you are wearing - be tidy
3) Try to be the first to greet the other
4) Give a warm shakehand
5) Have a good voice tone and speak intelligibly
6) Try to make the environment jovial + be relaxed, don’t make yourself feel too stressed, shy or too much enthusiasm - control your emotion and expressions.
7) Be yourself and talk convincingly - Avoid giving false impression on you
8.) Stay within limits - Don’t try to depict yourself as Mr Perfect
9) Have the gut to say you don’t know. Be honest, if your opponent is talking about a topic which you don’t know and he asks you if you know this and that, don’t say yes. Instead, simply tell him/her that you don’t know. This might infact trigger a new level of engagement with your opponent who is now enthusiastic to explain you something.
10) Engage into topics you know. Don’t talk about something which you don’t have any knowledge on. For example, if you don’t know anything about Linux, don’t try to fake it, you’ll end up creating a bad impression.
11) Talk about positive things. Don’t talk about your problems. Infact refrain yourself from talking about anything negative
12) Pay attention to what your opponent is saying - be attentive. There’s nothing more frustrating than to talk with someone and seeing his eyes or attention on something or someone else. So keep your eyes focussed.
13) Make it an engaging conversation where everyone can have their say. Don’t talk to much about yourself and keep the other one listening, this is a bad thing.

14) Do you have anything to add? I’m sure you do, so use the comment form below..

A Video On ‘How Can I Make A Good First Impression?’

Anatomy Of An Ellipsis In Written Languages

→ We say an ellipsis, but many ellipses - (Ellipsis in singular form, but Ellipses in plural form)
→ Ellipsis, has two meanings as far as linguistics is concerned. Some linguists or writers might argue that it has like 3 or 4 meanings. But I’m convinced that it has only 2 main meanings and the rest are just derivatives, or different styles, as I will show you.

First Definition Of Ellipsis

In any written form, (like english, french, polish or chinese), the common reference attributed to an ellipsis is:
→ An ellipsis comprises a set of three consecutive dots (without any spaces between them)

Those 3 dots can be further broken down to the following:

1) To show a deliberate silence to stress an emotion or feeling

I am Sorely vexed…

- Here the author would remain silent after speaking and looking to his opponent with a severe face expression

2) To indicate or show the omission of a word or groups of words.
The words are omitted simply because the first set of words would give a clear indication of those [omitted] words.

It is raining heavily…

- The full intended sentence would be: “It is raining heavily today”
- ‘Today‘ is the omitted word because the verb ‘is‘, which is in the present tense, clearly shows that the action is happening now!

Second Definition Of Ellipsis / What Is An Elliptical Sentence?

→ In written english language, an ellipsis refers to the omission of a word or set of words from a sentence.
→ The idea of simply omitting words in a sentence, makes that ’sentence’ to be referred as an Elliptical Sentence.

E.g:
a) Either Chelsea or Man Utd will win the English Barclays Premier League this season.

- The full intended meaning of the sentence is:
Either Chelsea will win the English Barclays Premier League
Or Man Utd will win the English Barclays Premier League

b) Wakish does not often write articles, but he does it is a blogging explosion.

- The full intended meaning of the sentence is:
Wakish does not often write articles
but when he does write articles it is a blogging explosion

→ As you can deduce from the above, an elliptical sentence undoubtedly avoids repetition of words which can otherwise be read ‘in between the lines’.
Intelligent usage of ellipses greatly enhances the structure of a sentence and thus conveying a clear meaningful message.

Pitfalls Of Elliptical Sentences

Don’t try to force a sentence to be elliptical, it will convey an incorrect grammatical meaning.

E.g:
Alesha neither has nor will go to Pubcons

- Here obviously, the reader will be confused in understanding that sentence
- The writer intended to say:
Alesha neither has go
nor will go to Pubcons

This is completely wrong, so be careful with such incorrect elliptical sentences

Final Notes On Ellipsis

→ I have precised that I’m defining ellipsis as pertained in ‘Written Language’. But ellipses also have different meanings in other types of languages, namely: mathematical languages, programming languages or computer languages.

→ In written language, ellipses vary slightly in their position in a sentence depending on their specific ‘governing linguistic bodies‘; whether to include a space at the beginning or end of the ‘3 dots‘ or/and to enclose them within square brackets..etc. Usage of an ellipsis in Japanese is different from that in Polish. For instance, in the U.S, writers abide by a ‘guide‘ known as the ‘Bluebook‘.

Readers’ Short Exercises On Ellipsis

1) Can you think of other (derived) meanings of ellipses?
2) Can you try to think of sentences which could make a wrong usage of an ellipsis?