Vocabulary Poem by Frank Avon

When I taught eighth graders,
I used newspapers to locate
words for vocabulary lessons:
local papers, the New York Times:
front-page news, editorials, OpEd,
including Letters to the Editor,

whatever else caught our attention.

Would the same be possible today,
I wondered. Here is what I found:

Ebola! Ebola! Ebola!

'US revises ebola rules:
monitoring not enough, States say'

'Ebola fight meets Reality'

'Nurse released from Quarantine returns to Maine'

'With ebola, Mayor stands tall
as two governors stumble'

'Virus is fought with scrub brushes and cleanser'

Editorial:
'The Dangers of Quarantine'

Letters to the Editor:
'Are ebola quarantines necessary? '

What else? Not that much.

'Audit of Postal surveillance raises concerns'

'... New York City bilks Medicaid'

'Picasso returns to Paris pedestal'

'GOP senate hopeful outsources jobs'

'Cash pours into climate fight'

'Israel expedites Jerusalem housing plan'


What else commands one's attention?

An elegant ad (on Page One!) :
HARRY WINSTON: rare jewels

Turn to Page Two:

CHANEL
Zeitmeister
Cartier
VERDURA
Rosa Lladró
Tiffany & Co.
Dior
CALVIN KLEIN underwear

One more page - a full-page ad in full color:

Charles SCHWAB
Own your own tomorrow

'Are you asking enough questions
about the way your wealth is managed? '


To read newspapers these days,
you need the vocabulary of the affluent:

NOT Walmart, Target, Home Depot,
'planning portfolio management /
income strategies / banking

And of high technology:

What the world needs now is

SIMPLE

'... a different kind of solution,
built on the idea that
sophisticated technology
doesn't have to be
complicated technology.

'In a world besieged by complexity,
'Simple' wins. It brings
clarity instead of confusion,
action over paralysis... allows
companies to redefine the way they run
by cutting across silos and
fragmented, outdated processes -
... to open up innovation...
so they can keep pace with
the massive amounts of data
being generated today
and deliver insights in real time,
helping them invent what's next
without disrupting what's now.'

Vocabulary Quiz:
1. surveillance
2. portfolio
3. outsources
4. silos
5. innovation
6. data
7. generated
8. disrupting
9. sophisticated
10.complicated


What we need is SIMPLE

SAP

sap.com/runsimple


NEW! NEXT! NOW!