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I also offer personally-tailored, individualized English conversation practice (including etiquette) and coaching in writing techniques. Finally, I edit texts such as magazines, business proposals, memorandums, emails so they are presented in English which does not embarrass you or your organization. For further details, please mail me at: language.etiquette@gmail.com

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10 August 2016

EU use of English, compared with US use - a warning about bureuacratic language

Definition of an online platform:

'The European Commission defines an online platform as a business that employs "information and communication technologies to facilitate interactions (including commercial transactions) between users, collection and use of data about these interactions, and network effects which make the use of the platforms with most users most valuable to other users." In their book, "Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy," Moazed and Johnson have a punchier definition: "a business that connects two or more mutually dependent groups in a way that benefits all sides."'

If you prefer the first definition, from the EU, to the second one, then you must be someone who wishes to speak and not be understood. As a bureaucrat, you will have "targets" for the number of words emitted, but none for the amount of understanding you have generated. The reason is simple. It is easy to count words but impossible to quantify understanding. Bureaucrats only do the easy stuff, however meaningless. The reason for that is simple, too. They get pad anyway - by you and me. Parasites!

See the content of this quote, and the full and very interesting article it comes from, about why Amazon, Google etc. are succeeding due to their clearer understanding of how to think about the market they are in, here: http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-09/the-greatest-tech-businesses-aren-t-really-tech 

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