Comments

I didn't think it was possible for Paris Hilton to be "more nauseous than before," but I didn't expect to read about her in Dispatches from the New World of Work, either.

Posted by Troy Worman at August 8, 2005 7:45 AM

Steve,

"NO OFFENCES MEANT"

I guess theres' typers devil everywhere! Even in ur post for that matter!!! Cant resist but point it out.....ur post reads....

"I'm not a regular reader of People Weekly, (yes, I feel compelled to point that our* before quoting the magazine)"

*I guess thats point that out.......rite? and well, I second Troy on his remarks above....i had LEAST expected this on TP Blog!

Guys.....get up! wake up! Remember the old Levis punchline..."Quality never goes out of style".....Come on' buddies, lets work twds churning out QUALITATIVE posts!....Trust me, Tom would love to see QUALITATIVE STUFF being debated QUALITATIVELY!

Posted by K.Sriram (from India) at August 8, 2005 8:20 AM

I agree with Troy and Sriram - real quality is what we are used to on the great mans' Blog!

Great to be back after a week's holiday - a whole week away from my PC - I managed to read a book at last!!!

It is a fabulous book called 'Dare to be a Daniel' by Tony Benn.

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/catalog/book.htm?command=Search&db=main.txt&eqisbndata=0091799996

I am biased as Tony Benn is my greatest political hero.

For the benefit of Blogging friends of mine outside the UK, Tony Benn is a Labour Politician and is now almost 80 years old.

He never became leader of the Labour Party - more is the pity in my view.

But he was a leading politician – very powerful - and always outspoken with frank and honest views setting him apart from the normal dull and boring politicians who simply stick to their party line, come what may.

Tony Benn is a man of great conviction.

He is also - in my opinion - the greatest Political speaker I have heard since I started getting interested in politics around the age of 18 years - about 35 years ago.

His book is written with typical Tony Benn ‘upfrontness.’

There are no punches pulled about how British politics really works. His prediction about too much power being in other than democratic hands is worrying. He argues persuasively there already is too much power in the hands of a few highly wealthy people or corporations - and that it will get worse - threatening democracy in the west as we currently recognise it.

On the 'non-political front' - the book contains many little gems of humour, humility, wisdom. There are numerous touching references to the love he shared with his wife of 51 years until her death in 2000. Tony Benn is obviously very proud of his family.

By his own admission he was born into a wealthy family and had a privileged upbringing in a loving and warm family. Despite that he comes across as a man who fought battles for people who were not so well off as he.

I just love the simplicity and creativity of the wonderful advice Tony Benn’s father him when he was 8 years old.

This is how it is described in the book.

"Father once said to me, ‘Never wrestle with a chimney sweep’, which was a curious piece of advice to give an eight year old, but I now understood exactly what he meant: ‘If someone plays dirty with you, don’t play dirty with them or you will get dirty too’ My attempts to keep personal abuse out of political controversy has been shaped by that simple phrase about how to steer clear of chimneysweeps. I recommend it to others without reservation."

Posted by Trevor Gay at August 8, 2005 8:48 AM

The word you are confusing it with is actually "nauseating," which I am sure Ms. Hilton is to most of us.

And no, I don't expect to read blurbs from People about the Hiltons on the TP site, either. But, the thread on white collar crime quickly deteriorated into a Martha Steward discussion, so maybe that's what "we" really want.

Posted by Mike at August 8, 2005 9:27 AM

A better question should be "Why dose this business brand nauseate me?" She has managed to parley her looks and leakage of video and photos into a media career. This woman probably did not need to work a day in her life, instead she has leveraged her core competency into a business model that generates value (otherwise others would not watch). Many a CEO has had much more and generated much less. What can you learn from her? What did she do that thousands of others could not, to figure out to generate interest in a person that most people would not care about. Now that’s marketing.

Posted by Steve Battista at August 8, 2005 9:38 AM

Lighten up! Discussions of misuse of language have often been a great subject of discussion here at tompeters.com.

(And, if you missed it, something or someone is 'nauseous' if it makes someone else feel 'nauseated.' It's actually very funny in this context.)

Posted by Steve Yastrow at August 8, 2005 10:25 AM

Let's leave Paris to younger days ...

Trevor, I saw Tony Benn on Question Time (a UK TV program) recently and it was like a breath of fresh air to hear someone speak as straight as he did. In my opinion he was on the money on nearly all of the issues.

He had difficulty though with a public schoolboy who was also on the panel having stormed into the House of Commons to protest the ban on hunting. Wouldn't cut the guy any slack even though he wasn't that bad. It was fun to see the two generations battling each other; the intellectual up and comer with opinions that had perhaps not been put to the test before against an old war horse like Tony Benn.

For top quality debates on current issues, there's no better show I know of than Question Time.

Posted by Noel Guinane at August 8, 2005 10:52 AM

I have to agree with Steve B. While your comments (both spoken and unspoken) are all true, you have to admire the fact that her sea sickness would get 10 times more press time than myself getting hit by a meteorite dropping out of the sky. Whether you agree or disagree, she has taken pop icon status to new levels and may be worth more than her inheritance. Things that you go hmmmmm.

Posted by RTodd at August 8, 2005 11:01 AM

I love this post! One of the things we are about here at tompeters.com is words. And Steve has done a very clever job of pointing out the misuse of the word nauseous by People's Weekly (and, I might add, about half of the English-speaking population of the world). Everybody, grab your dictionaries!

Posted by cathy at August 8, 2005 12:10 PM

People are more interesting than widgets ever will be, and are in 'themselves' the most versatile product in existence. The lovely Paris' "dumbness" is very smartly exploited.

I for one would be a very willing consumer of Paris' product!

Regarding the grammar in Steve's post, the only thing I would point out is "the 12 foot seas" should be "12 foot swells". Not too many ships could sail in 12 foot seas. But, you know what...that's what editors are for! Great job Steve! Who ever said that business was only business if it was boring!

I like it
I love it
I want more of it!

Posted by Tom O'Leary at August 8, 2005 2:03 PM

My comment, "I didn't think it was possible for Paris Hilton to be 'more nauseous than before,' but I didn't expect to read about her in Dispatches from the New World of Work, either." appears to have been taken out of context. It was only a flip comment meant to convey that I understand the difference between being "nauseous" and being "nauseated."

By no means was this comment meant to imply anything other than what it says. It seems some have inferred that my comment raises question to the appropriateness of writing about Paris in Tom's Dispatches, and that taking such action somehow cheapens the quality of the blog.

That was not my intent.

I agree with Cathy. Steve has done a very clever job.

And finally, in lieu of a dictionary, the following can be found in the Words and Expressions Commonly Misused chapter of of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means "sickening to contemplate"; the second means "sick at the stomach." Do not, therefore, say, "I feel nauseous," unless you are sure you have that effect on others.

Posted by Troy Worman at August 8, 2005 2:18 PM

Being me from a mediterranean country I'd like to say I have never heard of any place call "Sardinia", at the very least I can think of Cerdeña (isle of Italy). Sardinia comes from "sardina"=sardine, that could be related to the nauseating feelings Paris was supposed to be having I guess, so it could be all a game of words played by the journalist in question around that semantic realm.

For those who said this was not a quality topic to be commenting on here,well,we know this kind of industry moves millions and millions; in some countries, Spain or Italy for instance, it is like a plague just try to sintonize Spanish TV. That could make us think about why such type of low quality stuff works so well, instead of critisizing about its contents which is the easy and stupid thing to do and also what this type of marketing want us to do: critizising is a vice and the target is to make us all addicts (!)

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On the other hand, I am sure you don't turn blind at the kioks, sure you can see all this junk at any of them; simply denying its existence wouldn't help that only make us allieds. Better to take a position towards it, unless you are happy as cynincs of course. Collating a marketing professional called Francesc Petit: "Isn't it there any better idea than a naked woman?". I'd just add "still" (!).
Paris Hilton's character/product has a lot to do with this hammerly repeated idea. This path in the marketing industry, was started by any women's lead business?.

Who agreed Ms Hilton was "nauseous" in previous posts regardless of how unappropriate the term was Was it because she is a woman and rich or because she is an unreachable woman?. Do we know her personally? I am sorry but I believe less than half of what is shown and said in the yellow press. Please, let's try to scape the anecdotic part of the post and go to the meaningful/quality stuff.

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Posted by omara at August 8, 2005 7:04 PM

Why do people in "middle class" or "business life" feel they have to apologise for reading "People Weekly"? I'm English and I haven't a clue what this particular publication looks or reads like but we've got plenty of gossip mags in the UK and they're hugely popular. Someone's buying them, lots of folk are reading them and it can't all be, "I just glanced at a copy in a dentist waiting room" - but no one admits it...!

Another linguistic point: if they got to Sardinia feeling "more nauseous than before" then where were they before and why did that place make them feel nauseous?

And I agree with Omara's point above: how do we know what she's really like? Someone asked me recently if I like Maria Carey and my answer was, "I've never met her but I wouldn't let the fact that I don't like her music affect things if I did."

Posted by Mark JF at August 9, 2005 3:20 AM

I don't know about you, but I found her quite appetizing in that famous video that was circulating some time ago.

Posted by Steve Wilton at August 9, 2005 7:30 AM

There's no accounting for taste.

Posted by Noel Guinane at August 9, 2005 12:49 PM

Two things: 1. Look how much discussion this one "silly" post got. Got us going, didn't it? 2. Excellent point above re Paris and her "brand." Amazing...one very thin young woman with no discernable talent (and a bad bleach job - with all that money, she can't afford Clairol?) is "so hot."

Posted by Mary Schmidt at August 9, 2005 3:42 PM

Very well stated!

Posted by DaveV. at August 11, 2005 9:13 AM