The following is an (edited) excerpt from a recent 60 Minutes report, “How Dogs Express Their Emotions.” If you have ever watched YouTube videos of dogs welcoming home returning service members, it’s easy to see the bond between dogs and their owners. But have you ever wondered if dogs love us the way we love(…)
There are so many places and occasions where it is either unsafe, rude, or otherwise inappropriate to use a cell phone. Surely, you’d think it would be relatively simple to block cell phone signals in places where people shouldn’t be using them. I would certainly like a restaurant where they guaranteed that I wouldn’t hear the irritating(…)
When I travel, I notice that in other countries, they make more use of symbols and images than we do in the United States. I saw the sign below when I traveled on a Mexican bus recently. One word and one picture made the point briefly and without ambiguity. I wonder what readers think. Is it because(…)
Dieter Rams is a German industrial engineer who is famous for his ten principles of good design. The tenth principle is “Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.” I have recently(…)
In a previous article, I described the work of Sir Ernest Gowers, an advocate of plain language. His message is “be short, be simple, be human.” Medical professionals need to master the art of communicating simply and clearly almost more than anyone else. Why, for example, would anyone believe that it’s better to say, “Do not exceed(…)
Sir Ernest Gowers (1880 – 1966) was a British civil servant. He was educated at Rugby (where the game was invented) and Cambridge, where he studied Classics. He had a long, distinguished, and varied career with the civil service, including a time when he was private secretary for David Lloyd George when Lloyd George was introducing the(…)