Netiquette IQ Blog Of The Day - Seldom Heard, But Amusing, English Words

Good Netiquette requires proper grammar and generally less wordiness. It can be a challenge to get one's point across without the complication of large and obscure words. However, when I came across this article, I enjoyed it enough to republish in this blog. Have fun and see if you can use one or two of these words in an email!
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David Grambs and Ellen S. Levine

Co-authors, 'The Describer’s Dictionary: A Treasury of Terms & Literary Quotations'

 English Is Seldom at a Loss for Words

Huffingtonpost.com Posted: 12/26/2014 9:22 am EST Updated: 12/26/2014 11:59 am EST

In vocabulary, English is the richest modern language. It is constantly surprising even to those word gatherers among us who spend much time exploring dictionaries, especially the larger and older lexicons that harbor thousands of neglected words -- words that may be a bit dusty but are none the worse for disuse.

"Shaped like a stirrup" -- could there possibly be a word for that?

There is: stapediform. Or for having the sides reversed, as in a mirror image? (Haven't many of us wondered about this left-right reversal while applying makeup or shaving?) The answer is heterochiral. (Specular is the adjective for pertaining to a mirror or mirrors.) Then there are words for various shapes, like ovoid for egg-shaped, which is fairly common in usage. But what if the object is egg-shaped with the wider end up? Then it's obovoid. Similarly, obconic means conical with the pointed end down and pear-shaped upside down is obpyriform.

There is actually a word, griffinage, that is defined as the state of being a white person newly arrived in the Far East! (Griffonage -- one letter different in spelling -- means a scribble or illegible handwriting.) There's even a word, amphoric, meaning like the sound made when blowing across the lip of an empty bottle; and a term, spanipelagic, describing creatures dwelling in deep water but coming at times to the surface.

Other improbable but actual, dictionary-certified words worthy of mention are adoxography, good writing on a minor subject; bardocucullated, wearing a cowled cloak; perfuncturate, to do halfheartedly; scaff, to beg for food in a contemptible way; tacenda, matters or things that shouldn't be mentioned; ventifact, a stone rounded off by the wind; agathism, the belief that things tend to work out for the better; assentation, rote or insincere agreement; quomodocunquize, to make money in any conceivable way; naufrageous, in danger of shipwreck (naufragous is causing shipwreck); macarism or confelicity, joy or pleasure in another's happiness; borborygm, a growling in the stomach; laquearian, armed with a noose; filipendulous, hanging by a thread; eumoirous, lucky in being happily innocent and good; tarassis, male hysteria; and charientism, an insult that is artfully veiled.

In politics, couldn't we use the rarely heard or seen words empleomania, a craving for holding public office; and emptitious, corruptible or capable of being bought?

Do you ever feel a bit put off at attending an event or going to a museum where there is a "suggested contribution"? There is the term dation, which means giving that is not voluntary.

If you had to guess what lateritious, infuscate, and murrey mean, you'd probably be wrong. They're all particular colors: brick red, having a brownish tinge, and purplish black or mulberry, respectively. 

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

If you have not already done so, please view the trailer for my book below. 

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Netiquette IQ Tehnical Term Of The Day - Signature Analysis

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signature analysis

Signature analysis is either of two distinct processes.

1. Signature analysis is the scrutinizing of human signatures in order to detect forgeries. The analysis of a human signature involves the use of specialized software to evaluate not only the contours, but the movements originally made to create, a signature. Forged signatures tend to be produced more slowly than genuine ones. Even if the author speeds up the forgery process, it is impossible to duplicate the motion-versus-time function that would take place in a genuine signature. The software can also compare multiple signatures. Because of the variations found in a single person's multiple signatures, any electronically captured signature can only be used once. Two identical signatures suggest that at least one of them represents an attempt at fraud.

Human signature analysis is used in the banking, government, insurance, and health-care industries, and has gained popularity in recent years as a tool to combat identity theft.

2. In analog electronics, signature analysis is a troubleshooting technique in which an AC (alternating-current) signal with a specific waveform (usually a sine wave) is applied across a component. The resulting current-versus-voltage characteristic, called the analog signature, is rendered on an oscilloscope, with current displayed along the vertical axis and voltage displayed along the horizontal axis. The resulting analog signature is unique for each particular type of "healthy" component (resistor, capacitor, or diode, for example). Any deviation from the normal signature strongly suggests the existence of a fault in that component.

Analog signature analysis is used in complex electronic systems to troubleshoot printed-circuit boards to the component level.

This was last updated in December 2014

Posted by: Margaret Rouse 

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

If you have not already done so, please view the trailer for my book below. 

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Netiquette IQ Quotation Of The Day - The Collection And Connections Of information

As our technologies and the dependence on the Internet continues to grow at exponential rates, the collection of information we thought was impossible, and the lack of privacy we have always thought could not happen are indeed becoming reality. All netizens, their goverments and keepers of information must come together to protect everyone's basic rights.
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"Everything is going to be connected to cloud and data... All of this will be mediated by software."
Satya Nadella

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

If you have not already done so, please view the trailer for my book below. 

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Netiquette And Email Tracking - Ways To Avoid It - Via Netiquette IQ

 All of us are besieged with solicitations in our mailboxes. Many times our addressed and picked up by tracking engines. The article below should provide some reduction in reducing these.
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Ways to Avoid Email Tracking

By KATE MURPHY DEC. 25, 2014 NY Times

By now you probably know that browsing the web leaves you open to tracking by Internet service providers, website operators and advertisers. But less well known is that you can be tracked simply by opening an email. Merely clicking or tapping to open a message can transmit to the sender not only that you opened it, but also where you were when you did so and on what device, among other things.

The technology has been used by email marketers and Nigerian fraudsters for more than a decade. But more recently, it has become a tool used by employers, sales people, bill collectors, lawyers, political candidates, nonprofit fund-raisers and maybe also that guy you met at a bar and regrettably gave your contact information to.

Here’s how it works: The sender of the email embeds a so-called web bug or pixel tracker into the content of the message or possibly inside an attached PDF, Word or PowerPoint. These bugs are 1-by-1 pixel images (tinier than tiny), which are invisible to the recipient. When the email or document is opened, the bug triggers your device to contact the sender’s server and convey all sorts of information.

“What it does is lure you into an online environment and the collection that goes on there without alerting you that it’s happening,” said Ryan Calo, a professor of law at the University of Washington Law School in Seattle who specializes in privacy issues.

There are some things you can do to avoid having your email activity monitored. Perhaps the easiest defense is to adjust the settings of your email program so there is no image rendering.

It used to be set that way by default but last year, in a boon to marketers, Gmail made the setting an opt-out feature and many other email providers followed suit. Disabling images will sift and block images from incoming emails, including those tiny, pixel-size tracking bugs. You can click on the missing images you want to see and which ones you don’t.

“A more advanced technique is to construct a personal firewall that blocks images,” said Gerald Friedland, director of audio and multimedia research at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

Or, he said, you could simply turn off your Wi-Fi while opening and reading email messages. This, of course, assumes you aren’t checking your email on your provider’s website but rather using a retrieval program like Apple Mail or Outlook.

And don’t click on any attachment while connected, nor a link within the message, even if it’s the unsubscribe button. “The unsubscribe link is the most clicked item in emails so it’s often what they use to track you,” said H.D. Moore, a senior researcher with the Internet security consultant Rapid7. “As soon as you click on it, they know everything about you.”

Besides when, where and on what device you opened the message, an email sender can also tell how long you looked at the message and if you opened other windows while you had the message displayed. Also transmitted is if you saved, forwarded or deleted the message, how many times you subsequently opened the message plus various details about your device’s operating system and settings.

Analysis of this kind of tracking data is a standard service offered by bulk email providers like Constant Contact, MailChimp or HubSpot. These companies facilitate sending emails to large mailing lists and generate tracking reports so their customers can assess how well their messages are received.

“If a business learns what email content resonates, then you’ll get better content,” said Gail Goodman, the chief executive of Constant Contact.

Indeed, email marketing services argue that the tracking actually helps recipients because senders use the data to craft more relevant messages as well as to determine the best viewing format and delivery time.

Sales people who track emails through services like Yesware and Tout-App say the practice allows them to call customers soon after they have opened messages, while the pitch is still fresh. Or perhaps they can conveniently bump into customers at Starbucks or drop by their office, where the sales person knows the customer just opened an email.

Within the last couple of years, mobile apps like Bananatag and MailTracker have made email tracking available to just about anyone. Email tracking apps and services, whether intended for professional or personal use, can cost up to $35 a month depending on the number of emails users want tracked and the detail of the tracking data.

The legality of the practice is unclear. Email trackers argue it is the same data you give away when you visit a website with cookies. Opponents say it is a matter of expectation and consent. Websites are legally required to have a privacy policy that visitors can read to understand what data is being collected.

“People don’t have that same understanding when they open an email,” said Professor Calo at the University of Washington.

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newsletter via paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  Also, I am the president of Netiquette IQ. We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace.Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

If you have not already done so, please view the trailer for my book below. 

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