Playing around with grammar & words is a social game - You better refine it if you in great places want to be seen as a name

Dear blogreader,

Welcome back, or perhaps you have been here and I have not ;)

I have embarked on a new project to refine my second language. We learn a language as kids that we call our first language, but there is a lot of ways to become better than first! So this blog is about a few tools and tips that I have picked up and that perhaps could be a bit of inspiration to your journey as well. And if for no other resaon, you can expect your boss to have a better language than you, or that you as a boss is expected to be well articulated. I will today touch upon three main areas, extending vocabulary, picking up idioms and good tools that can help you along the road.

EXTENDING YOUR VOCABULARY

Your vocabulary is an important part of your language, and extending it with new words that add granularity and the right tone to the conversation is a good basic step. Here are a few words that I just picked up:

• thesaurus - a dictionary of synonyms and antonyms
• peloton - the big group of cyclists in a bycicle race hada
• ringer - a person that can be stand-in for you
• blamestorming - a brainstorming with the objective to figure out who to blame
• bluechip company - respected for quality in products and stability in growth and earnings.

BUSINESS IDIOMS

The ideoms are common expressions with a different meaning than the the litteral one. We use them more frequently than you think in our native language. And if you are dealing with your second language, you better pick them up or you are sidelined in the conversations.

• get down to brass tacks - start digging into the practical details of something
• dot your i's and cross your t's - to be very careful and pay attention to details
• face the music - to deal with an unplesant situation realistically
• nothing ventured, nothing gained - If you do not try to do eomething you never succeed
• throw cold water over (an idea, a plan) - to present reasons why something will not work
• copper bottomed - a very safe plan/contract/business

USEFUL TOOLS

I have been sold on the idea that there are useful books on the topic and that you can find a few ones that could take you forward. During my last exploration at the book store I came up with the following ones that I think are great for me:

• Colour Oxford Thesaurus - a small size one to be used to find at least one new alternative words a day for my high runner words
• 30 days to a more powerful vocabulary - simple exercizes for 15 minutes work per day
• The productive writer - for taking control of your writing life.
• Writing your life - you have valuable life experiences, time to share them?

This is all for now, stay tuned, soon more to come!