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…Around 1700, English spelling and usage were in a fairly fluid state. Against this background, two powerful social factors combined to convert a normal mild nostalgia for the language of the past into a quasi-religious doctrine. The first was a long-standing admiration for Latin, and the second was powerful class snobbery.

The big secret of dealing with people

There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. And that by making the other person want to do it.

What do you want? John Dewey, one of America's most profound philosophers, said that the deepest urge in human nature is «the desire to be important».

What do you want? Not many things, but the few things that you do wish, you crave with the insistence. Some of the things most people want include: health and the preservation of life, food, sleep, money and the things money will buy, life in the hereafter, sexual gratification, the well-beings of our children, a feeling of importance.

Almost all these wants are usually gratified – all except one. But there is one longing – almost as deep, almost as imperious, as the desire for food or sleep – which is seldom gratified. It is what Freud calls «the desire to be great». It is what Dewey calls «the desire to be important».

Lincoln once began a letter saying: «Everybody likes a compliment». William James said: «The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated». He didn't speak of the «wish» or the «desire» or the «longing» to be appreciated. He said the «craving» to be appreciated.

The desire for a feeling of importance is one of the chief distinguishing differences between mankind and the animals. If our ancestors hadn't had this flaming urge, civilization would have been impossible. Without it we should have been just about like animals.

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated, povertystricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln.

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that inspired Dickens to write his immortal novels. This desire inspired Sir Christopher Wren to design his symphonies in stone. This desire made Rockefeller amass millions that he never spent! And this same desire made the richest family in your town build a house far too large for its requirements. This desire makes you want to wear the latest styles, drive the latest cars, and talk about your brilliant children.

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History sparkles with amusing examples of famous people struggling for a feeling of importance. Even George Washington wanted to be called «His Mightiness, the President of the United States»; and Columbus pleaded for the title «Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India». Catherine the Great refused to open letters that were not addressed to «Her Imperial Majesty»; and Mrs. Lincoln, in the White House, turned upon Mrs. Grant like a tigress and shouted, «How dare you be seated in my presence until I invite you!»

Do men and women speak the same languages?

Do men and women understand the same things from the spoken word? Judging by the misinterpretation, misunderstanding and general mystification that can arise from a single simple sentence, there are grave reasons for doubt. In fact, I would put it even stronger. Do we even speak the same language?

First – and contrary to the general impression – men use language more. «Like everyone else, I used to believe that women were the talkative sex», says Dale Spender, a sociolinguist. «But when I analysed the results of over one hundred and forty recorded conversations between men and women, the result was quite the opposite. Whether we're talking about social gatherings or business meetings, one element never changes: in any conversation with a man, a woman who talks more than a third (of the time is seen as talking too much)».

Nowhere is this more obvious than on radio or TV talk shows. One host, Robert Robinson, once said, «It's difficult to find the right kind of woman to participate in my programme. Most of them can't stand up to me and so stay silent. They also find interrupting a bit tricky». On one occasion, a well-known female thinker became so cross and unhappy at being what she regarded as «shouted down» that she remained silent for the last fifteen minutes of the programme. Even those women who are perfectly capable of holding their own are notably less talkative than their male counterparts.

Another female characteristic is the belief that conversation should be a reciprocal exchange rather than an attempt to dominate the other person. According to sociologist Jennifer Coates, «when a woman in a group raises a topic, the others will encourage, sympathise or elaborate. The next female speaker may enlarge on some point, add a personal anecdote, or simply make “Go on” interjections. But one thing she won't do is flatly contradict the previous speaker and abruptly change the subject. But men in a group with women often get bored with what they see as the slow buildup of a topic». The tried and tested method of avoiding this hazard is by doing what most women hate: interrupting.

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«The effect constant interruption has on women is that they become silent», says Dr Coates. It isn't solely that men regard conversation as a contest, there is also a clash of styles. «We all think we know what a question is. But with men and women it triggers different reactions. Men think questions are requests for information, whereas women think they are part of the way in which a co-operative conversation works. If a woman asks a man a question, she's trying to keep the conversation going, while the man thinks this is a request for information, so he gives her a lecture». In social situations, this different view of the polite enquiry can often cause bad feelings.

The reason for such discrepancies is something that frequently makes male English a rather different language from the female version of English: most men use language to conceal their feelings whereas women see it as means of revealing their emotions.

Polling the people

Opinion polls are on their ground when the question put seeks to define a proposed pattern of behaviour. That is why the «will you vote conservative, labour, liberal or abstain» type of question has shown a fairly high correlation with actual election results in spite of occasional wild lapses. Most people, whether or not they are able to rationalize their attitudes are generally aware of a change in their political allegiance or enthusiasm. The answer is therefore meaningful. For the same reason a question such as «do you think Mr. X will make a good minister?» evokes a response in which the variation has some statistical significance.

But the introduction of abstract concepts immediately reduces the validity of the whole procedure. The term «standards of living», for example, means many different things to different people. It can be defined fairly precisely by economists, but it means something different to an old-aged pensioner supporting herself in her own cottage, to a skilled printer living in a council house with a family of earning teenagers, and to the director of a large company. And since the standard of living as opposed to the illusion of higher money income, has in fact barely increased by a statistically perceptible amount within the last year, what significance should be attached to the fact that 23 per cent of those asked in the poll think that their standard if living has increased?

Living like human beings

In Wrangham and Peterson's Demonic Males, the authors come to the pessimistic conclusion that nothing much has changed since early hominids branched

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off from primordial chimp ancestors five million years ago. Group solidarity is still based on aggression against other communities; social cooperation is undertaken to achieve higher levels of organized violence.

While the history of the twentieth century does not give us great grounds for faith in the possibility of human progress, the situation is not as bleak as these authors believe. Biology is not destiny. Rates of violent homicide appear to be lower today than during mankind's hunter-gatherer period, despite gas ovens and nuclear weapons. Contrary to the thrust of postmodernist thought, people cannot free themselves entirely from biological nature. But by accepting the fact that people have natures that are often evil, political, economic, and social systems can be designed to mitigate the effects of man's baser instincts.

Take the human and particularly male desire to dominate a status hierarchy, which people share with other primates. The advent of liberal democracy and modern capitalism does not eliminate the desire, but it opens up many more peaceful channels for satisfying it. Among the American Indians virtually the only way for a man to achieve social recognition was to be a warrior, which meant, of course, excellence in killing. Other traditional societies might add a few occupations like the priesthood or the bureaucracy in which one could achieve recognition.

A modern technological society, by contrast, offers thousands of arenas in which one can achieve social status, and in most of them the quest for status leads not to violence but to socially productive activity. A professor receiving tenure in leading university, a politician winning an election, or an increasing market share may satisfy the same underlying drive for status. But in the process, these individuals have written books, designed public policies, or brought new technologies to market that have improved human welfare.

Of course, not everyone can achieve high rank of dominance in any given status hierarchy, since these are by definition zero-sum games in which every winner produces a loser. But the advantage of a modern, complex, fluid society is, as economist Robert Frank pointed out, that small frogs in large ponds can move to smaller ponds in which they will loom larger. Seeking status be choosing the right ponds will not satisfy the ambitions of the greatest and noblest individuals, but it will bleed off much of the competitive energy that in hunter-gatherer or agricultural societies often has no outlet save war.

Liberal democracy and market economies work well because, unlike socialism, radical feminism, and other Utopian schemes, they do not try to change human nature. Rather they accept biologically grounded nature as given and seek to

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constrain it through institutions, laws, and norms. It does not always work, but it is better than living like animals.

Positive prevention and intervention strategies for children abuse

The Right to Happiness project started before the Stockholm World Congress against Child Abuse. It was part of the process of preparation during which large gaps of our knowledge had been identified. These gaps were not just about the incidence, the numbers of children who were being abused, but also covered a lack of awareness about what was currently being done to try to address the problem, and which of these were most effective.

The Right to Happiness project was implemented by the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It was established to try to identify some of the responses that were happening around the world to try to address the problem of chills abuse. The project wished to present information about what was happening to the World Congress, to inform about positive actions that were already being taken. The Congress wanted to raise awareness about this issue around the world. The Right to Happiness project sought to ensure that included in this awareness was some knowledge about interventions that were being effective about prevention and recovery.

As to the World Congress itself that took place in Stockholm in August 1996. The Stockholm meeting was the direct results of an almost unique degree of cooperation between different groups and sectors. It combined and utilized the talents, strengths and resources of governments, notably the government of Sweden, intergovernmental bodies and the world-wide NGO community.

What did it do? It achieved a great deal. 122 governments were represented. Hundreds of NGOs, academic institutions and concerned individuals attended and contributed. Many of the constituent parts of the UN family were represented.

It involved policy makers, legislators, practitioners, and advocates, and most notably children who were able to demonstrate their understanding, competence and positive ideas for addressing the issue. It focused world attention on child abuse. It acknowledged it as an almost universal phenomenon. It commented upon the scale of abuse.

A Declaration and Agenda for Action were unanimously agreed. The Declaration affirmed the commitment to global partnership against child abuse which was reorganized as an absolute and fundamental violation of the rights of the child. It restated that all the signatories to the Convention were required to protect children

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from abuse and promote physical and psychological recovery of those already victimized. It affirmed the need for strong laws, and the need for resources and political commitment to enforce them. It confirmed the need to build and promote partnership between all levels of society to counter this form of violence. It called for the highest priority to be given to action against child abuse, to develop and implement comprehensive planning and programs that address the issue through a diverse and complementary range of strategies.

Earth taken for granted

Environmentalists and scientists have been urging world governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions drastically. They also want to see massive replanting of forests and woodlands.

Both of these things are possible and will even be helpful to national economies. For instance, much energy from fossil fuel burning is wasted – in fuel that is not burned properly, in the heat that goes up the chimney, in the lights needlessly left on. If buildings were properly insulated and managed, if wasteful car journeys were discouraged and public transport made more efficient, if waste heat from power plants was used to heat greenhouses or even homes, if coal was burned so that more energy was extracted from it, most nations could not only cut carbon dioxide output considerably, they could also save enormous sums of money. Added to that, there could be a switch to hydro-electric, solar, wind or tidal power which, once running, produces no carbon dioxide. Nor does nuclear power, but this has proved expensive and politically alarming.

Tree planting, too, has benefits. About a quarter of the carbon dioxide created by people comes from clearing and burning forests. Growing trees soak up carbon dioxide; if the world stopped clearing forests and started to plant new ones, the trees would help absorb greenhouse gases. Trees are also sources of food, building materials, fibres and medicines. They stabilise soil, protect watersheds and shelter wildlife. They, too, are a bonus to a nation's economy.

But the world's energy is unevenly shared. The rich nations use about 70 per cent of all the world's energy. Developing nations make up three quarters of the global population and they use the other 30 per cent of the world's energy. A monopoly of energy is therefore the same as a monopoly of wealth. And the greenhouse effect is a problem created by the rich nations. These now have to persuade developing nations not to start using energy in greater quantities, which will be politically difficult, because developing nations cannot make their people better off

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without using more energy. For instance if China carries out plants to expand its coal use in the next 35 years it will put into the atmosphere about half as much carbon dioxide again as the whole world dumps now.

There is another political difficulty. Nations of South America, Africa and South-East Asia are being urged to protect their own rainforests. But those urging them to do this are rich nations which cut down almost all their own wild forests centuries ago.

There are other colossal pressures for growth. The world's population is growing faster than ever before. In 1800 there were one billion people on the planet; by 1940 the total was 2.5 billion. Now there are more than five billion. Before the decade ends there will be six. Every year there are another 92 million people in the world. Most of these are born into the developing regions. They will need food, housing, transport, communications, education, hospitals and jobs. All these things require energy. They will need land, and this means more forest clearance. They will need fertilizers for their crops, and this means more nitrous oxide in the atmosphere.

The final problem is that although most climate scientists are fairly sure about the broad problem of the greenhouse effect, almost every detail is a matter of debate. For the first time, questions have to be asked not about what is good for a country but what is good for the planet. Scientists are only now beginning to ask, for instance, whether rainforests are there because of rainfall, or rain is there because of forests. They are beginning to discover that a slight drop in average temperature in one part of the southern hemisphere may be causing droughts in, say, the Sahel in North Africa. Some of these questions have been studied piecemeal already. But, until the last few years, no one has thought about the planet as a kind of life-support machine. It has been simply taken for granted.

Bounding the Land

To take advantage of their land's diversity, Indian villages had to be mobile. This was not difficult as long as a family owned nothing that could not be either stored or transported on a man's or – more often – a woman's back. Clothing, baskets, fishing equipment, a few tools, mats for wigwams, some corn, beans, and smoked meat: these constituted most of the possessions that individual Indian families maintained during their seasonal migrations. Even in the south, where agriculture created larger accumulations of food than existed among the hunter-gatherer people of the north, much of the harvest was stored in underground pits to await later visits and was not transported in large quantities. The need for diversity and

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mobility led Indians to avoid acquiring much surplus property, confident as they were that their mobility and skill would supply any need that arose.

The first English visitors to America thought it a paradox that Indians seemed to live like paupers in a landscape of great natural wealth. It was only much later that some understood: «Indians only seemed impoverished, since they were in fact supplied with all manner of needful things, for the maintenance of life and livelihood». First English visitors had European notions of wealth. Perhaps they just did not know true riches when they saw them. But then the whole history of Northern America would have developed in some other direction.

If the price is right…

A personal computer wouldn't cost twice as much in the UK as it does in the States and you wouldn't need to take out a bank loan to buy a coffee in the Champs-Elysees. Of course, strictly speaking, the computer is tradeable and the coffee non-tradeable. Tradeable goods are exported all over the world, but nontradeables have to be consumed where they are produced. And, since a refreshing cafe noir halfway up the Eiffel Tower can only be purchased in Paris, frankly, they can charge what they like for it. But, tradeable or not, as every salesperson knows, «The price of a thing is what it will bring». And when it comes to price, the buyer is his own worst enemy. Show me a high price and I'll show you too many customers prepared to pay over the odds.

The truth is, people pay the price they deserve. A massive 20 % mark-up does not stop people buying 370 million cans of Coke a day. And with profit margins of up to a phenomenal 50 %, Marlboro cigarettes can still gross nearly $40 billion a year and help make Philip Morris the most profitable company in the world.

In fact, product-pricing lies at the very heart of the marketing process itself. Its impact is felt in sales volume, in the product's contribution to overall profits and, above all, in the strategic position the product occupies in the marketplace. For a higher price will often raise a product profile and a high product profile commands a higher price. Product profile is basically the difference between a Rolex and a Timex, a bottle of Chanel No 5 and a bottle of Boots No 7. So, of course, is price.

But it isn't as simple as that. Economic, as well as market, forces are at work. If they were not, we might expect international competition to equalize prices everywhere, but, in spite of all the talk of a single market, borderless Europe and a common currency, prices remain alarmingly elastic. And what goes for a song in one country can cost a bomb in another.

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For one thing, most commodities, particularly agricultural products, are usually heavily subsidized. So, in the absence of free trade, food will tend to be cheap in the USA, cheaper still in Central and South America, expensive in Europe and outrageously so in Japan. Trade barriers compound the problem. For, sadly, those who took part in the Uruguay round of GATT could barely reach general agreement on where to have lunch.

So how do you put a price on things? An everyday supermarket item in one country might be a luxury item in another and cost considerably more. Scotch, for instance, is a mass market product in Aberdeen but understandably a niche market product in Abu Dhabi. No prizes for guessing where it's cheaper.

Then, of course, there are taxes. By imposing wildly different rates of tax on otherwise homogeneous commodities like petrol, governments distort prices even further. If you're driving through Europe you'd certainly do better to fill up in Luxembourg than in Italy. Tax is also the reason why a Jaguar car costs less in Brussels than in Britain, where it was built. So buy your car in Belgium, your fridge and other «white goods» in the UK; stock up on medicines in France and on CDs in Germany. That way you'll be sure to get the best deal. For where you – spend your money is almost as important as what you spend it on, but neither is as important as the fact that you're prepared to spend it. In the words of film actor Gary Grant, «Money talks, they say. All it ever said to me was Goodbye».

Experiment allows scientists to «read» volunteers' thoughts

Scientists have read the minds of healthy volunteers using a brain scanner to detect what they were thinking. By placing the volunteers in the scanner after they had been shown three film clips, the researchers were able to tell which clip they were recalling.

The advance brings a step closer the prospect of a «thought machine» to detect what a person is thinking from their brain activity pattern. But the technique is still at an early stage of development and its capacity to discriminate between «thoughts» is limited.

Scientists have searched for evidence of memory traces for almost a century. Although their biological existence is accepted, their precise mechanisms, location and nature remain a mystery.

Eleanor Maguire, professor of neuroimaging at University College, London, has previously shown it is possible to tell where a person is standing in a virtual reality room by using a brain scanner to detect the pattern of their thoughts. She

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has also shown that a small area of the brain at the back of the hippocampus was enlarged in male taxi drivers who had memorized the maze of London streets. These studies focused on spatial memory, the most basic sort.

The results of the latest study take the research further by showing that episodic memory – of the everyday events that make up the autobiography of our lives – can be tracked in the same way even though they are more complex. They demonstrate that these memories are stable and trigger the same brain activity each time they are recalled, making it possible for them to be identified and correctly interpreted on each occasion.

Professor Maguire said: «We've been able to look at actual memory traces for a specific episodic memory. We found that our memories are definitely represented in the hippocampus. Now we've seen where they are, we have an opportunity to understand how memories are stored and changed through time. We are not at the point of being able to put people in a scanner and read their thoughts. But we can predict from their brain activity what they are thinking and remembering. The more we understand about how memories are stored, the more we can understand about how people [with brain injuries] can be rehabilitated».

For the study, 10 volunteers were shown three short film clips, lasting seven seconds each. They showed different actresses performing three tasks – posting a letter, throwing a coffee cup in a bin, and getting on a bike. The volunteers were then placed in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner and asked to recall each clip in turn. This was repeated many times and the scans were analysed to detect patterns in the brain activity associated with each clip. In the final stage of the experiment the volunteers were returned to the scanner and asked to recall the clips at random. The researchers found they were able to tell which clip they were thinking about from the pattern of their brain activity.

Although patterns in individual volunteers' brains varied from one another, they showed remarkable similarities in the parts of the hippocampus that were active. The findings are published in Current Biology. «We have documented for the first time that traces of individual rich episodic memories are detectable and distinguishable in the hippocampus. Now that we have shown it is possible to directly access information about individual episodic memories in vivo and noninvasively, this offers new opportunities to examine important properties of episodic memory», the researchers conclude.

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