Discuss differences between concrete and abstract language, and how to use concrete language to build a meaningful message
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: Abstract language refers to broad concepts that an audience can interpret in multiple ways. Consider the sentence "We need to solve the transportation problem ASAP." In this sentence, the terms "transportation," and "ASAP" (as soon as possible) are abstract. What do they mean? A dictionary defines transportation as conveyance (carrying, moving, shipping, or hauling), but does everyone think of the same kind of transportation when they visualize the word? Probably not. Does "ASAP" mean by today, or by the end of the week, or whenever you have the time to do it? Concrete language is specific. The more concrete the language is, the more likely it is that you and your audience will interpret the same message in the same way: "By tomorrow morning, we need to determine why trucking shipments are leaving the warehouse one to two days late."
If you have trouble looking for the right word to express your meaning, you can use your word processing software's thesaurus to identify options. A thesaurus is a reference tool that provides synonyms and antonyms. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar meaning, such as "quickly" and "rapidly." Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings, such as "clear" and "confusing." However, choose carefully among the words that you see in the thesaurus, and look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary before using them. Even when a thesaurus lists two words as synonyms, they may not have the exact same meaning. For ex-ample, a thesaurus usually lists the word "privileges" as a synonym for "benefits." However, if you were writing about "employee benefits," you could not simply swap the word "privileges" for "benefits." "Employee benefits" has a different meaning than "employee privileges."
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The goal of sustainable economic development is to
A) protect consumers from foreign goods that might be unsafe B) control the flow of goods and services globally C) maintain and improve the quality of life and the environment D) limit the quantity of a product that can be imported into a country
If the partnership experiences a net loss of $60,000 for the year, what will be the final net amount of profit or (loss) closed to each partner's capital account?
A) ($90,000) to Alfred and $30,000 to Barne B) ($30,000) to Alfred and ($30,000) to Barne C) ($24,000) to Alfred and ($36,000) to Barne D) $30,000 to Alfred and ($90,000) to Barne