Fire and Knowledge

Reality is all about doing ality over and over again.

—Abraham Piper

In Chinese, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s slogan, “finger-lickin’ good,” came out as “eat your fingers off.”

Ford executives spent a long time scratching their heads trying to figure out why the Pinto was a complete flop in Brazil. Then someone told them that pinto was Brazilian slang for “tiny male genitals.”

And the folks at Gerber didn’t know that because of high illiteracy rates in some African countries, pictures on the outside of packages are always representative of what’s inside. No surprise, then, that customers were more than a little repelled by that cute baby on the baby food labels.

—Mark Breier, The 10-Second Internet Manager, p. 118

Matt Perman instructs us how to write better emails. In our email-dominant workplace, good email communication skills are essential. For the love of your co-workers, please read this.

Sometimes you wonder what they were thinking when they named a thing. Take the pineapple. If ever there was an object that was less like pine and less like an apple, and in nearly every respect, this surely must be it. Or grapefruit. I don’t know about you, but if someone handed me an unfamiliar fruit that was yellow, sour, and the size of a cannonball, I don’t believe I would say, “Well, it’s rather like a grape, isn’t it?”

—Bill Bryson, I’m a Stranger Here Myself (Broadway Books: 1999), p. 267.

When looking at my Wells Fargo bank account online, I noticed the link “Send Us Suspicious Email.” I thought that was an odd request, but I went ahead and did it since they asked.

Recently found on a new purchase:

Notice: This article meets the flammability requirements of California…. Care should be exercised near open flame.

Abraham Piper, a friend and co-worker, just started a blog called 22 Words. Every post is twenty-two words, just like this one.