By Joel Bowman, on March 15th, 2013% Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments have become a well-known example of how a person’s mouth can get him or her into trouble, especially in these days of cell-phone video and YouTube. The moral of the story is that people (you, me, and Mitt Romney) need to be aware that the demarcation between “private” and “public” has become increasingly fuzzy.
Even when people are being careful with their language and know that others will hear or read what they say, choice of words and manner of delivery may say more than was intended. In a recent column in the New . . . → Read More: What You Say Is What You Mean
By Joel Bowman, on December 11th, 2011% You may be wondering what stubble’s got to do with it…. I had been wondering why so many men in current advertising, including the man deemed the “Sexiest Man Alive” by a popular magazine, are often photographed and filmed with three to five days of stubble. My curiosity got the better of me when I read an interview with a female actor who had just completed a movie about a same-sex relationship. When asked what she liked best about kissing another woman, she replied, “No stubble.”
It turns out that stubble is women’s Number-One complaint about kissing men. It . . . → Read More: Stubble, Etc.
By Joel Bowman, on October 2nd, 2011% Several news sources used the following headline to report the results of a recent medical study: Doctors predict impotence after prostate treatment. A number of other news sources used the following wording: Study: Potency after prostate cancer varies widely. And other headlines put it this way: Sex After Prostate Cancer: New Study Helps Predict Erectile Function Post-Treatment
Which of the headlines is a hypnotic command promoting impotence for those facing prostate surgery? I suspect that most readers of this blog know that “Doctors predict impotence after prostate treatment” is a form of “doctor hypnosis.” One of my videos on . . . → Read More: Why Everyone Needs to Know Hypnosis
By Joel Bowman, on June 9th, 2011% About a month ago, I blogged about metaphors we die by (and for). That blog entry barely scratched the surface of the subject (metaphorically speaking). One of the subjects that has been in the news a lot lately is the growing problem of obesity. Have you ever thought about the way language contributes to the size of that problem? The most obvious example is, perhaps, the now-defunct option at McDonalds, which invited customers to say, “Supersize me.”
That is just one example. For one reason or another, one of the meanings of the word “healthy” is “big” or “generous.” . . . → Read More: Metaphorically Speaking
By Joel Bowman, on February 13th, 2011% One of the things NLP teaches is that details are important. Details have always been important, of course, but they are often overlooked. A TV show I saw recently had a couple of detectives enter a mosque to talk to the Imam. He has them leave their shoes in the entryway. We see them remove their shoes, and we watch the female detective use her shawl to cover her head. We watch them have their chat with the Imam, and then we watch them leave the mosque without stopping to put their shoes back on before hitting the cold and . . . → Read More: Details
By Joel Bowman, on January 12th, 2011% A few days ago in Tucson, Arizona, a young man named Jared Lee Loughner shot and killed six people and wounded 19 others, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who seems to have been his principal target. Since the shooting, much of the media coverage has focused on the possible influence of “hate speech,” which demonizes those who have certain opinions or otherwise belong to identifiable groups.
The event and the media coverage of it reminded me of three of the books that have influenced my own thinking about language and its relationship to thought and action: Science and Sanity . . . → Read More: Hate Speech
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What You Say Is What You Mean
Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments have become a well-known example of how a person’s mouth can get him or her into trouble, especially in these days of cell-phone video and YouTube. The moral of the story is that people (you, me, and Mitt Romney) need to be aware that the demarcation between “private” and “public” has become increasingly fuzzy.
Even when people are being careful with their language and know that others will hear or read what they say, choice of words and manner of delivery may say more than was intended. In a recent column in the New . . . → Read More: What You Say Is What You Mean
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