How To Use These 3 Hypnotic “Power Words” To Covertly Increase Your Conversion Rates How To Use These 3 Hypnotic “Power Words” To Covertly Increase Your Conversion Rates Imagine if you had the power to influence people’s subconscious minds. Imagine if you could do it by using simple trigger words to activate involuntary hypnotic “reflexes” in their brains. Now imagine you could do it in writing as well as in speech. You probably don’t believe this can actually happen. But I’m going to tell you that it can—because over time we’ve all been subtly hypnotized to accept certain trigger words. The process started before we could even talk. You would never suspect these hypnotic words of holding any power. They are simple, and innocuous. But when you use them consciously and correctly, they can dramatically improve your persuasive power. I have already used six of them to keep you reading. Now, I doubt you will ever guess all of them—let alone deconstruct why they work. So I’m going to go through the top three and tell you why they’re so potent. And I’ll include examples to help you put them to use.

But before I do that, a word about what hypnosis is, is not—and why these words are considered hypnotic. What Hypnosis Actually Is Few marketers have more than a common “knowledge” about hypnosis. That’s a pity because hypnosis is a very powerful psychological tool—and marketing is all about psychology. Here are some things you may think you know about hypnosis that are actually pure myths: Hypnosis is mumbo-jumbo. Actually, it is a century-old psychological tool used by many doctors, dentists, psychiatrists and therapists to achieve everything from anesthesia without anesthetics, to stomach stapling without staples. When you’re hypnotized you’re asleep. Actually, you are simply relaxed. Your subconscious mind is more active than your conscious (critical) mind. I can’t be hypnotized. Actually, we all go into varying states of hypnosis many times each day. When driving, when watching TV, when reading—you may even be in a state of mild hypnosis right now. Hypnotized people are like zombies or robots. Actually, you can’t make someone under hypnosis do anything they don’t already want to do.

Sure, their subconscious mind is “exposed” in a state of hypnosis, so they’re more willing to have their emotions—and ultimately their decisions—directed. And that’s good for us as marketers and salespeople—assuming that we’re in this for the right reasons: i.e., helping people. But if they really don’t want something, you ain’t gonna sell it to them no matter what. So before you read on it would be smart to just double-check the first rule of sales, and make sure that your audience actually wants what you’re offering them. Okay, I’m glad we cleared that up. Let’s get into these three “power words” shall we? 1. “IMAGINE” Why it’s hypnotic Two factors are at work here. Firstly, you may have noticed that if you ask a stranger to do something—especially to buy something—they tend to balk. Their natural reaction is to question the instruction. To find a reason to disagree with it. The critical mind throws up objections. What’s interesting, though, is this doesn’t happen if you just ask someone to imagine something. Especially if you ask them to imagine the outcome of the sale, rather than making the purchase itself.

There’s no resistance to that. This is because we don’t see imagining as a “real” task. It’s just a mind-game. Indeed, an enjoyable game; a distraction from life—as with fantasies. So by asking your prospect to imagine something, you bypass that critical part that throws up objections, and “sneak in” to their mind through the back door of their imagination. And bypassing the critical mind is the second of three crucial steps to achieving hypnosis. (The first is attracting the person’s attention, which I’ll assume you’ve already done.) The third step is to stimulate the unconscious mind. That is exactly what imagining something does. As strange as it may sound, the brain literally cannot tell the difference between imagining reality, and actually experiencing reality. As far as your brain is concerned, there’s no difference between visualizing a tree, and seeing a tree. This makes your prospect’s imagination a deceptively powerful ally to you. Remember—the fear of loss is far stronger than the desire for gain. So if you can get your prospect to feel a sense of ownership for your offering, you invoke a much stronger desire than by merely offering benefits. By getting them to imagine owning it, they become as if they already have it.

As if you have already given it to them. And the natural thing to do then is to keep it…which means making the purchase. This sense of ownership over what we imagine is surprisingly deep-seated. It should be. Our youngest years are ruled by our imaginations. Kids are highly possessive of their make-believe ideas and characters and worlds. They don’t like to be told they aren’t real. And although as adults we’ve managed to conceal that affection for our fantasies under a veneer of pragmatism, the same effect still governs our behavior at a subconscious level. An example Daniel Levis has made a study of the psychology of persuasion. Here, he not only asks his prospect to imagine the outcome of buying, but also to picture it. Different words—same idea. Repeating the concept in different ways makes it even harder to resist. 2. “YOU” Why it’s hypnotic You is a placeholder for your name. I know—it’s an obvious one. The three most powerful words in sales, perhaps, are you, free and guaranteed. But free and guaranteed aren’t hypnotic words. You is. And that’s because it is not actually the word you that has hypnotic power—but the name it represents.

Your name. I’m willing to bet you have no idea just how hypnotic your name actually is. For example, did you know that you are much more likely to buy from someone who has the same sounding letter in their first or last name as you do? This according to The Journal of Consumer Research. You’re also more likely to marry someone with the same initial. And think to your own experience. Don’t you automatically want to like people who have the same name as you? Don’t you feel like they deserve more of a chance than other people? Actors, for example. I don’t just like David Tennant because he’s talented. Irrational as it is, I can’t help feeling that I ought to like him. Many email marketers have latched onto the fact that a person’s name is powerful—you probably receive emails with subject lines like, “Methuselah, top 10 copywriting tricks”. And many emails you get will start with your first name; long ones will include it several times. You might also have noticed that this approach doesn’t work. It immediately marks the email out as “artificial”. It doesn’t feel right. And of course not—because no one but a marketer would email you like that.

Or perhaps someone close to you, if you were in big trouble. “Methuselah you jackass, don’t bother coming home.” You may have experienced the same thing from telemarketers. Their script always has them saying your name—as if it will build rapport. But it actually just feels creepy. A person’s name is so powerful that you have to have a very light touch when you use it. But the word you is different. It’s natural to use it in conversation, so you don’t need to worry about being heavy-handed. Yet it encapsulates the same basic self-obsessiveness that makes your own name so powerful. (Don’t get me wrong; I’m not criticizing you. We’re all self-obsessed. It’s just the nature of being human.) The reason words that refer to us are so hypnotic has to do with a psychological effect called Fundamental Attribution Error. Basically, while we are naturally critical of other people, our critical minds take a break when we evaluate ourselves. That analytic part of us just doesn’t kick in. You may not have noticed this about yourself—but I bet you’ve noticed it about all those oblivious inconsiderate jerks constantly making your life miserable.

So when people talk about us, we tend to be lulled. What they’re saying bypasses the critical factor—and all that’s left then is to stimulate the unconscious mind. And guess what? There’s nothing as stimulating to us as our own interests, desires, ambitions, goals, yearnings and emotions. For our whole lives, that is all we really have. So as long as your copy addresses those things for your prospect, it is guaranteed to carry them along in a rapt, semi-torpid daze of introspection. An example Look at how MailChimp uses the word you on its homepage. The third word of the body copy is you. And it is used twice more in the same sentence (yes, your counts). Then again as the third word of the second sentence. And to top it off, they also use the word “personal” to emphasize how much this service is for you. Obviously this particular bit of copy is short—space precludes me showing you a very long example. But the effect is only amplified in longer copy. 3. “BECAUSE” Why it’s hypnotic Once again, it’s all about bypassing the critical factor so we can stimulate the unconscious mind.

You’ve probably heard of “reason why” advertising—a phrase I believe comes from John E Kennedy, though I learned it from Drayton Bird. As human beings, we crave order. We want to know why something is the way it is, what caused something to happen. And we crave it particularly in our own lives. These kinds of reasons, these relationships of cause and effect, are encapsulated in the word because. When our mind’s gatekeeper—the “critical factor”—hears that word, it treats it as a cue to let the speaker (or writer) through to the unconscious mind. This is expertly illustrated by Robert Cialdini in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, where he cites a study you’ve probably heard of, performed by Ellen Langer at Harvard. Langer asked to push in line at the library to photocopy some papers: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” The number of people who agreed: 94%. Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine? The number of people who agreed: 60%.

You’d be inclined to think the difference was because of the reason she gave. But a further experiment indicated otherwise… Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies? The number of people who agreed: 93%. Notice that no real reason was given this time—obviously, everyone waiting for the Xerox machine had to make copies. Yet nearly as many people agreed as when a real reason was given. If you think back to your own childhood, or watch how kids negotiate with their parents, you’ll immediately see that this does indeed work exactly as Langer showed. Perhaps this sort of situation sounds familiar: “Mom, can I have some biscuits?” “No darling, not now.” “But mom, I love biscuits.” “I know sweetie, but I said not now.” “But mom, why?” “Because I said so.” Is that a real reason? No, it ain’t! It’s just a reiteration of what the kid already knows, right? But at this point, most children accept that it’s time to give up. And that’s something “programmed” into us, even as adults. It makes the word “because” very powerful.

However… This is not a magic bullet. Langer conducted a further study where she upped the number of pages to be Xeroxed from 5 to 20. And in that situation, the times when a nonsensical reason was given for pushing in line got no more people to agree than the times when no reason was given. Conversely, when the reason of being in a hurry was given, it doubled the number of people who agreed. In other words, using the word “because” satisfies the brain’s natural search for reasons. For small requests, you can actually short-circuit the process and trick the mind into moving to the next stage of the sequence as if a real reason had been given, because it’s simply not important enough to devote brainpower to analyzing the reason. But for larger requests—even just for 20 pages at the Xerox machine, let alone when asking for a purchase—the critical factor doesn’t turn off so easily. Nonetheless, using because still triggers the reason-why reflex. Give a good reason, and “you’re in”, so to speak. Judging from Langer’s experiment, it could as much as double your response rate.

An example Formsteel offers great benefits—then backs them up with solid reasons. Without the word because, the “reason why” reflex wouldn’t kick in automatically, and so the overall effect of the copy would be much weaker. Including because makes the mind accept the benefits are more unskeptically and unreservedly. 3 HYPNOTIC WORDS YOU CAN USE TODAY These are not the only hypnotic words. There are others. But these three are particularly powerful, and particularly useful to us as marketers and salespeople. Imagine. You. Because. They are also conveniently easy to work into copy, into videos, and even into face-to-face sales presentations. Why not try it and report your results below? About the Author: Bnonn is the author of a free course on 5 website changes you can make today to bring in more sales. Known in the boroughs as the Information Highwayman , he helps entrepreneurs sell more online by improving both their web copy and design. When he’s not knee-deep in the guts of someone’s homepage, he is teaching his kids about steampunk, Nathan Fillion, and how to grapple a zombie without getting bit.

Related Posts Word Choice - The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill PDF What this handout is about This handout can help you revise your papers for word-level clarity, eliminate wordiness and avoid clichés, find the words that best express your ideas, and choose words that suit an academic audience. Introduction Writing is a series of choices. As you work on a paper, you choose your topic, your approach, your sources, and your thesis; when it’s time to write, you have to choose the words you will use to express your ideas and decide how you will arrange those words into sentences and paragraphs. As you revise your draft, you make more choices. You might ask yourself, “Is this really what I mean?” or “Will readers understand this?” or “Does this sound good?” Finding words that capture your meaning and convey that meaning to your readers is challenging. When your instructors write things like “awkward,” “vague,” or “wordy” on your draft, they are letting you know that they want you to work on word choice. This handout will explain some common issues related to word choice and give you strategies for choosing the best words as you revise your drafts.

As you read further into the handout, keep in mind that it can sometimes take more time to “save” words from your original sentence than to write a brand new sentence to convey the same meaning or idea. Don’t be too attached to what you’ve already written; if you are willing to start a sentence fresh, you may be able to choose words with greater clarity. For tips on making more substantial revisions, take a look at our handouts on reorganizing drafts and revising drafts . “Awkward,” “vague,” and “unclear” word choice So: you write a paper that makes perfect sense to you, but it comes back with “awkward” scribbled throughout the margins. Why, you wonder, are instructors so fond of terms like “awkward”? Most instructors use terms like this to draw your attention to sentences they had trouble understanding and to encourage you to rewrite those sentences more clearly. Difficulties with word choice aren’t the only cause of awkwardness, vagueness, or other problems with clarity. Sometimes a sentence is hard to follow because there is a grammatical problem with it or because of the syntax (the way the words and phrases are put together).

Here’s an example: “Having finished with studying, the pizza was quickly eaten.” This sentence isn’t hard to understand because of the words I chose—everybody knows what studying, pizza, and eating are. The problem here is that readers will naturally assume that first bit of the sentence “(Having finished with studying”) goes with the next noun that follows it—which, in this case, is “the pizza”! It doesn’t make a lot of sense to imply that the pizza was studying. What I was actually trying to express was something more like this: “Having finished with studying, the students quickly ate the pizza.” If you have a sentence that has been marked “awkard,” “vague,” or “unclear,” try to think about it from a reader’s point of view—see if you can tell where it changes direction or leaves out important information. Sometimes, though, problems with clarity are a matter of word choice. See if you recognize any of these issues: Misused words—the word doesn’t actually mean what the writer thinks it does. Example: Cree Indians were a monotonous culture until French and British settlers arrived. Revision: Cree Indians were a homogenous culture. Words with unwanted connotations or meanings.

Example: I sprayed the ants in their private places. Revision: I sprayed the ants in their hiding places. Using a pronoun when readers can’t tell whom/what it refers to. Example: My cousin Jake hugged my brother Trey, even though he didn’t like him very much. Revision: My cousin Jake hugged my brother Trey, even though Jake doesn’t like Trey very much. Jargon or technical terms that make readers work unnecessarily hard. Maybe you need to use some of these words because they are important terms in your field, but don’t throw them in just to “sound smart.” Example: The dialectical interface between neo-Platonists and anti-disestablishment Catholics offers an algorithm for deontological thought. Revision: The dialogue between neo-Platonists and certain Catholic thinkers is a model for deontological thought. Loaded language. Sometimes we as writers know what we mean by a certain word, but we haven’t ever spelled that out for readers. We rely too heavily on that word, perhaps repeating it often, without clarifying what we are talking about. Example: Society teaches young girls that beauty is their most important quality. In order to prevent eating disorders and other health problems, we must change society.

Revision: Contemporary American popular media, like magazines and movies, teach young girls that beauty is their most important quality. In order to prevent eating disorders and other health problems, we must change the images and role models girls are offered. Wordiness Sometimes the problem isn’t choosing exactly the right word to express an idea—it’s being “wordy,” or using words that your reader may regard as “extra” or inefficient. Take a look at the following list for some examples. On the left are some phrases that use three, four, or more words where fewer will do; on the right are some shorter substitutes: I came to the realization that I realized that Prior to Before Keep an eye out for wordy constructions in your writing and see if you can replace them with more concise words or phrases. Clichés In academic writing, it’s a good idea to limit your use of clichés. Clichés are catchy little phrases so frequently used that they have become trite, corny, or annoying. They are problematic because their overuse has diminished their impact and because they require several words where just one would do. The main way to avoid clichés is first to recognize them and then to create shorter, fresher equivalents.

Ask yourself if there is one word that means the same thing as the cliché. If there isn’t, can you use two or three words to state the idea your own way? Below you will see five common clichés, with some alternatives to their right. As a challenge, see how many alternatives you can create for the final two examples. Agree to disagree Let the cat out of the bag _____?_____ Writing for an academic audience When you choose words to express your ideas, you have to think not only about what makes sense and sounds best to you, but what will make sense and sound best to your readers. Thinking about your audience and their expectations will help you make decisions about word choice. Some writers think that academic audiences expect them to “sound smart” by using big or technical words. But the most important goal of academic writing is not to sound smart—it is to communicate an argument or information clearly and convincingly. It is true that academic writing has a certain style of its own and that you, as a student, are beginning to learn to read and write in that style. You may find yourself using words and grammatical constructions that you didn’t use in your high school writing.

The danger is that if you consciously set out to “sound smart” and use words or structures that are very unfamiliar to you, you may produce sentences that your readers can’t understand. When writing for your professors, think simplicity. Using simple words does not indicate simple thoughts. In an academic argument paper, what makes the thesis and argument sophisticated are the connections presented in simple, clear language. Keep in mind, though, that simple and clear doesn’t necessarily mean casual. Most instructors will not be pleased if your paper looks like an instant message or an email to a friend. It’s usually best to avoid slang and colloquialisms. Take a look at this example and ask yourself how a professor would probably respond to it if it were the thesis statement of a paper: “Moulin Rouge really bit because the singing sucked and the costume colors were nasty, KWIM?” Selecting and using key terms When writing academic papers, it is often helpful to find key terms and use them within your paper as well as in your thesis. This section comments on the crucial difference between repetition and redundancy of terms and works through an example of using key terms in a thesis statement. Repetition vs. redundancy These two phenomena are not necessarily the same.

Repetition can be a good thing. Sometimes we have to use our key terms several times within a paper, especially in topic sentences. Sometimes there is simply no substitute for the key terms, and selecting a weaker term as a synonym can do more harm than good. Repeating key terms emphasizes important points and signals to the reader that the argument is still being supported. This kind of repetition can give your paper cohesion and is done by conscious choice. In contrast, if you find yourself frustrated, tiredly repeating the same nouns, verbs, or adjectives, or making the same point over and over, you are probably being redundant. In this case, you are swimming aimlessly around the same points because you have not decided what your argument really is or because you are truly fatigued and clarity escapes you. Refer to the “Strategies” section below for ideas on revising for redundancy. Building clear thesis statements Writing clear sentences is important throughout your writing. For the purposes of this handout, let’s focus on the thesis statement—one of the most important sentences in academic argument papers. You can apply these ideas to other sentences in your papers.

A common problem with writing good thesis statements is finding the words that best capture both the important elements and the significance of the essay’s argument. It is not always easy to condense several paragraphs or several pages into concise key terms that, when combined in one sentence, can effectively describe the argument. However, taking the time to find the right words offers writers a significant edge. Concise and appropriate terms will help both the writer and the reader keep track of what the essay will show and how it will show it. Graders, in particular, like to see clearly stated thesis statements. (For more on thesis statements in general, please refer to our handout .) Example: You’ve been assigned to write an essay that contrasts the river and shore scenes in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. You work on it for several days, producing three versions of your thesis: Version 1: There are many important river and shore scenes in Huckleberry Finn. Version 2: The contrasting river and shore scenes in Huckleberry Finn suggest a return to nature.

Version 3: Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature. Let’s consider the word choice issues in these statements. In Version 1, the word “important”—like “interesting”—is both overused and vague; it suggests that the author has an opinion but gives very little indication about the framework of that opinion. As a result, your reader knows only that you’re going to talk about river and shore scenes, but not what you’re going to say. Version 2 is an improvement: the words “return to nature” give your reader a better idea where the paper is headed. On the other hand, she still does not know how this return to nature is crucial to your understanding of the novel. Finally, you come up with Version 3, which is a stronger thesis because it offers a sophisticated argument and the key terms used to make this argument are clear. At least three key terms or concepts are evident: the contrast between river and shore scenes, a return to nature, and American democratic ideals.

By itself, a key term is merely a topic—an element of the argument but not the argument itself. The argument, then, becomes clear to the reader through the way in which you combine key terms. Strategies for successful word choice Be careful when using words you are unfamiliar with. Look at how they are used in context and check their dictionary definitions. Be careful when using the thesaurus. Each word listed as a synonym for the word you’re looking up may have its own unique connotations or shades of meaning. Use a dictionary to be sure the synonym you are considering really fits what you are trying to say. Don’t try to impress your reader or sound unduly authoritative. For example, which sentence is clearer to you: “a” or “b”? Under the present conditions of our society, marriage practices generally demonstrate a high degree of homogeneity. In our culture, people tend to marry others who are like themselves. (Longman, p. 452) Before you revise for accurate and strong adjectives, make sure you are first using accurate and strong nouns and verbs.

For example, if you were revising the sentence “This is a good book that tells about the Civil War,” think about whether “book” and “tells” are as strong as they could be before you worry about “good.” (A stronger sentence might read “The novel describes the experiences of a Confederate soldier during the Civil War.” “Novel” tells us what kind of book it is, and “describes” tells us more about how the book communicates information.) Try the slash/option technique, which is like brainstorming as you write. When you get stuck, write out two or more choices for a questionable word or a confusing sentence, e.g., “questionable/inaccurate/vague/inappropriate.” Pick the word that best indicates your meaning or combine different terms to say what you mean. Look for repetition. When you find it, decide if it is “good” repetition (using key terms that are crucial and helpful to meaning) or “bad” repetition (redundancy or laziness in reusing words). Write your thesis in five different ways. Make five different versions of your thesis sentence. Compose five sentences that express your argument. Try to come up with four alternatives to the thesis sentence you’ve already written.

Find five possible ways to communicate your argument in one sentence to your reader. (We’ve just used this technique—which of the last five sentences do you prefer?) Whenever we write a sentence we make choices. Some are less obvious than others, so that it can often feel like we’ve written the sentence the only way we know how. By writing out five different versions of your thesis, you can begin to see your range of choices. The final version may be a combination of phrasings and words from all five versions, or the one version that says it best. By literally spelling out some possibilities for yourself, you will be able to make better decisions. Read your paper out loud and at… a… slow… pace. You can do this alone or with a friend, roommate, TA, etc. When read out loud, your written words should make sense to both you and other listeners. If a sentence seems confusing, rewrite it to make the meaning clear. Instead of reading the paper itself, put it down and just talk through your argument as concisely as you can. If your listener quickly and easily comprehends your essay’s main point and significance, you should then make sure that your written words are as clear as your oral presentation was.

If, on the other hand, your listener keeps asking for clarification, you will need to work on finding the right terms for your essay. If you do this in exchange with a friend or classmate, rest assured that whether you are the talker or the listener, your articulation skills will develop. Have someone not familiar with the issue read the paper and point out words or sentences he/she finds confusing. Do not brush off this reader’s confusion by assuming he or she simply doesn’t know enough about the topic. Instead, rewrite the sentences so that your “outsider” reader can follow along at all times. Check out the Writing Center’s handouts on style , passive voice , and proofreading for more tips. Questions to ask yourself Am I sure what each word I use really means? Am I positive, or should I look it up? Have I found the best word or just settled for the most obvious, or the easiest, one? Am I trying too hard to impress my reader? What’s the easiest way to write this sentence? (Sometimes it helps to answer this question by trying it out loud. How would you say it to someone?) What are the key terms of my argument? Can I outline out my argument using only these key terms?

What others do I need? Which do I not need? Have I created my own terms, or have I simply borrowed what looked like key ones from the assignment? If I’ve borrowed the terms, can I find better ones in my own vocabulary, the texts, my notes, the dictionary, or the thesaurus to make myself clearer? Are my key terms too specific? (Do they cover the entire range of my argument?) Can I think of specific examples from my sources that fall under the key term? Are my key terms too vague? (Do they cover more than the range of my argument?) Works consulted/additional resources We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find the latest publications on this topic. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . The American Heritage Book of English Usage: A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English (Boston: Houghton, 1996). Anson, Chris M.

and Robert A. Schwegler. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers, 2nd ed. (New York: Addison, 2001). Grossman, Ellie. The Grammatically Correct Handbook: A Lively and Unorthodox Review of Common English for the Linguistically Challenged (New York: Hyperion, 1997). Cook, Claire Kehrwald. Line by Line: How to Improve Your Own Writing (Boston: Houghton, 1985). O’Conner, Patricia C. Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English (New York: Putnam, 1996). Tarshis, Barry. How to be Your Own Best Edito:r The Toolkit for Everyone Who Writes (New York: Three Rivers P, 1998). Williams, Joseph. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 6th ed. (New York, Addison, 2001). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout (just click print) and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests : Shots - Health News : NPR Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests Embed Embed Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests Our Use Of Little Words Can, Uh, Reveal Hidden Interests Embed Embed Twitter Katherine Streeter for NPR One Friday night, 30 men and 30 women gathered at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C. Their goal was love, or maybe sex, or maybe some combination of the two. They were there for speed dating. The women sat at separate numbered tables while the men moved down the line, and for two solid hours they did a rotation, making small talk with people they did not know, one after another, in three-minute increments. I had gone to record the night, which was put on by a company called Professionals in the City, and what struck me was the noise in the room. The sound of words, of people talking over people talking over people talking. It was a roar.

What were these people saying? And what can we learn from what they are saying? That is why I called James Pennebaker , a psychologist interested in the secret life of pronouns. About 20 years ago Pennebaker, who's at the University of Texas, Austin, got interested in looking more closely at the words that we use. Or rather, he got interested in looking more closely at a certain subset of the words that we use: Pennebaker was interested in function words. Article continues after sponsorship For those of you like me — the grammatically challenged — function words are the smallish words that tie our sentences together. The. This. Though. I. And. An. There. That. "Function words are essentially the filler words," Pennebaker says. "These are the words that we don't pay attention to, and they're the ones that are so interesting." According to the way that Pennebaker organizes language, the words that we more often focus on in conversation are content words, words like "school," "family," "live," "friends" — words that conjure up a specific image and relay more of the substance of what is being discussed.

"I speak bad Spanish," Pennebaker explains, "and if I'm in a conversation where I'm listening to the other person speak, I am just trying to find out what they are talking about. I am listening to 'what, where, when' — those big content-heavy words. All those little words in between, I don't listen to those because they're too complex to listen to." In fact, says Pennebaker, even in our native language, these function words are basically invisible to us. "You can't hear them," Pennebaker says. "Humans just aren't able to do it." But computers can, which is why two decades ago Pennebaker and his graduate students sat down to build themselves a computer program. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program that Pennebaker and his students built in the early 1990s has, like any computer program, an ability to peer into massive data sets and discern patterns that no human could ever hope to match. And so after Pennebaker and his crew built the program, they used it to ask all kinds of questions that had previously been too complicated or difficult for humans to ask.

Some of those questions included: Could you tell if someone was lying by carefully analyzing the way they used function words? Looking only at a transcript, could you tell from function words whether someone was male or female, rich or poor? What could you tell about relationships by looking at the way two people spoke to each other? Which brings us back to speed dating. One of the things that Pennebaker did was record and transcribe conversations that took place between people on speed dates. He fed these conversations into his program along with information about how the people themselves were perceiving the dates. What he found surprised him. "We can predict by analyzing their language, who will go on a date — who will match — at rates better than the people themselves," he says. Specifically, what Pennebaker found was that when the language style of two people matched, when they used pronouns, prepositions, articles and so forth in similar ways at similar rates, they were much more likely to end up on a date. "The more similar [they were] across all of these function words, the higher the probability that [they] would go on a date in a speed dating context," Pennebaker says.

"And this is even cooler: We can even look at ... a young dating couple... [and] the more similar [they] are ... using this language style matching metric, the more likely [they] will still be dating three months from now." This is not because similar people are attracted to each other, Pennebaker says; people can be very different. It's that when we are around people that we have a genuine interest in, our language subtly shifts. "When two people are paying close attention, they use language in the same way," he says. "And it's one of these things that humans do automatically." They aren't aware of it, but if you look closely at their language, count up their use of "I," and "the," and "and," you can see it. It's right there. Pennebaker has counted words to better understand lots of things. He's looked at lying, at leadership, at who will recover from trauma. But some of his most interesting work has to do with power dynamics. He says that by analyzing language you can easily tell who among two people has power in a relationship, and their relative social status.

"It's amazingly simple," Pennebaker says, "Listen to the relative use of the word "I." What you find is completely different from what most people would think. The person with the higher status uses the word "I" less. To demonstrate this, Pennebaker pointed to some of his own email, a batch written long before he began studying status. First he shares an email written by one of his undergraduate students, a woman named Pam: Dear Dr. Pennebaker: I was part of your Introductory Psychology class last semester. I have enjoyed your lectures and I've learned so much. I received an email from you about doing some research with you. Would there be a time for me to come by and talk about this? Pam Now consider Pennebaker's response: Dear Pam - This would be great. This week isn't good because of a trip. How about next Tuesday between 9 and 10:30. It will be good to see you. Jamie Pennebaker Pam, the lowly undergraduate, used "I" many times, while Pennebaker didn't use it at all. Now consider this email Pennebaker wrote to a famous professor.

Dear Famous Professor: The reason I'm writing is that I'm helping to put together a conference on [a particular topic]. I have been contacting a large group of people and many have specifically asked if you were attending. I would absolutely love it if you could come... I really hope you can make it. Jamie Pennebaker And the return email from Famous Professor: Dear Jamie - Good to hear from you. Congratulations on the conference. The idea of a reunion is a nice one ... and the conference idea will provide us with a semiformal way of catching up with one another's current research.... Isn't there any way to get the university to dig up a few thousand dollars to defray travel expenses for the conference? With all best regards, Famous Professor Pennebaker says that when he encountered these emails he was shocked to find that he himself obeyed this rule. He says he thought of himself as a very egalitarian person, and assumed he would never talk to people differently because of their status. But in retrospect he says it makes sense. We use "I" more when we talk to someone with power because we're more self-conscious. We are focused on ourselves — how we're coming across — and our language reflects that.

So could we use these insights to change ourselves? Like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, could we bend our personalities by bending the words we use? Could we become stronger? More powerful? Healthier? After 20 years of looking at this stuff, Pennebaker doubts it. "The words reflect who we are more than [they] drive who we are," he says. You can't, he believes, change who you are by changing your language; you can only change your language by changing who you are. He says that's what his research indicates. Pennebaker has collected some of this research in a book called The Secret Life of Pronouns , but he says he feels the practice of using computers to count and categorize language is really just a beginning. It's like we just invented the telescope, he tells me, and there are a million new places to look. In fact, since this article first ran, Pennebaker has used his big data computer analysis to look at a wide range of new questions. He's become a kind of literary detective, using the program to determine if a lost play was written by Shakespeare.

(Results of that search should be published soon.) He's also trying to figure out if function words can predict students' performance in college through an analysis of 25,000 admissions essays. And he published an entire paper on the use of the filler words — um, like, uh, I mean and you know. One of the things that he found was that the use of these words — in addition to their function of annoying older people — was associated with conscientiousness. Pennebaker has several other projects underway as well — using our simplest words as a window into our souls. An earlier version of this story ran on NPR in 2012. The | Define The at Dictionary.com definite article 1. (used, especially before a noun, with a specifying or particularizing effect, as opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of the indefinite article a or an): the book you gave me; Come into the house. 2. (used to mark a proper noun, natural phenomenon, ship, building, time, point of the compass, branch of endeavor, or field of study as something well-known or unique): the sun; the Alps; the Queen Elizabeth; the past; the West. 3.

(used with or as part of a title): the Duke of Wellington; the Reverend John Smith. 4. (used to mark a noun as indicating the best-known, most approved, most important, most satisfying, etc.): the skiing center of the U.S.; If you're going to work hard, now is the time. 5. (used to mark a noun as being used generically): The dog is a quadruped. 6. (used in place of a possessive pronoun, to note a part of the body or a personal belonging): He won't be able to play football until the leg mends. 7. (used before adjectives that are used substantively, to note an individual, a class or number of individuals, or an abstract idea): to visit the sick; from the sublime to the ridiculous. 8. (used before a modifying adjective to specify or limit its modifying effect): He took the wrong road and drove miles out of his way. 9. (used to indicate one particular decade of a lifetime or of a century): the sixties; the Gay Nineties. 10.

(one of many of a class or type, as of a manufactured item, as opposed to an individual one): Did you listen to the radio last night? 11. enough: He saved until he had the money for a new car. She didn't have the courage to leave. 12. (used distributively, to note any one separately) for, to, or in each; a or an: at one dollar the pound. Origin of the1 adverb 1. (used to modify an adjective or adverb in the comparative degree and to signify “in or by that,” “on that account,” “in or by so much,” or “in some or any degree”): He's been on vacation and looks the better for it. 2. (used in correlative constructions to modify an adjective or adverb in the comparative degree, in one instance with relative force and in the other with demonstrative force, and signifying “by how much … by so much” or “in what degree … in that degree”): the more the merrier; The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Origin Expand Hyphen (-) | Oxford Dictionaries to show word breaks Hyphens in compound words Hyphens are used in many compound words to show that the component words have a combined meaning (e.g. a pick-me-up , mother-in-law , good-hearted ) or that there is a relationship between the words that make up the compound: for example, rock-forming minerals are minerals that form rocks. But you don’t need to use them in every type of compound word. Compound adjectives Compound adjectives are made up of a noun + an adjective, a noun + a participle , or an adjective + a participle . Many compound adjectives should be hyphenated. Here are some examples: noun + adjective open-mouthed With compound adjectives formed from the adverb well and a participle (e.g. well-known), or from a phrase (e.g. up-to-date), you should use a hyphen when the compound comes before the noun: well-known brands of coffee but not when the compound comes after the noun: His music was also well known in England. Their figures are up to date. It’s important to use hyphens in compound adjectives describing ages and lengths of time: leaving them out can make the meaning ambiguous .

For example, 250-year-old trees clearly refers to trees that are 250 years old, while 250 year old trees could equally refer to 250 trees that are all one year old. Compound verbs Use a hyphen when a compound formed from two nouns is made into a verb, for example: noun chat-room In the past, these sorts of compounds were usually hyphenated, but the situation is different today. The tendency is now to write them as either one word or two separate words. However, the most important thing to note is that you should choose one style and stick to it within a piece of writing. Don’t refer to a playgroup in one paragraph and a play-group in another. Hyphens joining prefixes to other words Hyphens can be used to join a prefix to another word, especially if the prefix ends in a vowel and the other word also begins with one (e.g. pre-eminent or co-own). This use is less common than it used to be, though, and one-word forms are becoming more usual (e.g. prearrange or cooperate). Use a hyphen to separate a prefix from a name or date, e.g.

post-Aristotelian or pre-1900. Use a hyphen to avoid confusion with another word: for example, to distinguish re-cover (= provide something with a new cover) from recover (= get well again). Hyphens showing word breaks Hyphens can also be used to divide words that are not usually hyphenated. They show where a word is to be divided at the end of a line of writing. Always try to split the word in a sensible place, so that the first part does not mislead the reader: for example, hel-met not he-lmet; dis-abled not disa-bled. Hyphens are also used to stand for a common second element in all but the last word of a list, e.g.: You may see a yield that is two-, three-, or fourfold. You can read more about when to use hyphens on the Oxford Dictionaries blog . Here you will find helpful tips on when to use hyphens and examples of when they should not be used. Which is the correct spelling? decision Which is the correct spelling? coersion Which is the correct spelling? extention Which is the correct spelling? confusion Which is the correct spelling?

elecion Which is the correct spelling? suspision Which is the correct spelling? collection Which is the correct spelling? invacion Which is the correct spelling? solucion Which is the correct spelling? population You scored /10 practise again? Retry Most popular in the world Australia List of Power Words for a Resume If you could use a list of power words for a resume, then this article is for you. Whether you are writing your resume or perhaps helping someone else with theirs, you will find the following lists helpful. List of Power Words for a Resume Power words make a sentence, or resume , stronger. Sometimes there is little difference between applicants for a job, and a strong resume can help you to stand out, or at least make the cut for an interview.

Here is a list of power words for a resume for various fields: Management Power Words: Built, Demonstrated, Developed, Enhanced, Facilitated, Generated, Impacted, Implemented, Negotiated, Revitalized Sales and Marketing Power Words: Closed, Collaborated, Delivered, Drove, Established, Generated, Increased, Presented, Prospected, Retained Accounting Power Words: Analyzed, Audited, Justified, Prepared, Processed, Reported, Researched, Reviewed, Verified Healthcare Power Words: Assigned, Assessed, Assisted, Cared, Charged, Monitored, Nursed, Provided, Secured Technical Power Words: Analyzed, Built, Consulted, Created, Escalated, Formatted, Integrated, Maintained, Programmed, Set up, Supported, Troubleshot Academic Power Words: Applied, Authored, Counseled, Developed, Educated, Evaluated, Mentored, Nourished, Researched, Taught, Tutored Two sites that have a long list of power words for a resume are International Student.com and Resume Toolbox.com . Tips on Making a Resume You have several options when putting together a resume. You can have one professionally made by a resume writing company.

It will cost some money, but may be worth it to land your dream job. Remember that the cost of a professional writing service would be tax deductible. Also, the staff would be made up of professionals that would make your resume strong and persuasive. If you want to try it on your own, there are several sites online that have resume building tools that will guide you. The tools will take care of formatting, fonts, etc. so you will just have to write it. If you need some writing tips , read on. Resume Writing Tips Before you even start writing your resume, find out if there is a certain format for resumes in your industry. If you are applying to a local, small business, the format would not be as important. If you are ready, here are some things to remember. Honesty is the best policy. Fully explain any gaps between jobs and be accurate about skills, training, and experience. If you lie on your resume and the company wants to hire you, they will probably check on at least a few things. If you have lied, they definitely won’t hire you. It’s a big risk to take that they won’t check everything. Make your writing strong and positive.

Do not use “I” or “me” and start each description with a power word or an action word . Some examples of action words are: achieved, administered, coordinated, decided, improved, introduced, investigated, modernized, planned, promoted, and updated. Write using an active voice rather than a passive one. Active voice is more concise and easier to understand. If you don’t know what active voice is, as opposed to passive voice, this example will show you. Active: I managed a team of seven people. Passive: A team of seven people was managed by me. Passive voice is sometimes confusing and vague; whereas active voice tells it like it is and adds impact to your writing. Your resume should be one page long unless you have a long work history. Using the active voice will shorten the sentences which will help. If it is still too long, try to rewrite the descriptions. To be professional, include a cover letter. The paper for this and the resume needs to be good quality and be white or ivory. Make sure to use an easy to read font that is between 10 and 14 in size. Last, don’t forget to proofread.

There are words that sound the same and are spelled differently, like “there” and “their” to watch out for. Also, some typos make new words, so spell check won’t catch them. Word Games word games PLAY ONLINE » (Requires Flash Plugin) Find and 'pop as many words as you can in the letter grid before your time runs out. PLAY ONLINE » (Requires Flash Plugin) Race against other players to create words from groups of eight letters. PLAY ONLINE » (Requires Flash Plugin) Race against time to uncover hidden words and titles. PLAY ONLINE » (Requires Flash Plugin) Race to stop the falling letters from filling up the grid by 'popping' words. PLAY ONLINE » (Requires Flash Plugin) Battle for control of the board in this strategic word game.

Question: Which word can go before Power, Hole and Date to make three other words?
Answer: Man