More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of

 

Serial Entrepreneur — I hope there’s a special place in hell for people who refer to themselves as “serial entrepreneurs.” What the heck is the difference between an entrepreneur and a serial entrepreneur? I suppose Bill Gates is an entrepreneur and e.e. cummings’ Uncle Sol was a serial entrepreneur — farmer, chicken farmer, skunk farmer, worm farmer.

 

Length — For some reason, people who talk about basketball now describe players as having “great length.” Nobody says, “He’s very tall.” They say, “He’s got great length.”

News flash: People don’t have length. They have height. They even have width. But they don’t have length — except at birth and shortly thereafter, when we measure them lying down because they can’t stand up yet.

Describing a basketball player as having “great length” is as uninformative as saying, “He’s a tall black guy with long arms.”

  3 comments for “More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of

  1. 26 May 2008 at 12:29 pm

    Ouch.

  2. PE
    PE
    26 May 2008 at 5:54 pm

    Hi GL –

    You’re not a serial entrepreneur, are you? What put that in my mind was an invitation I got to a local conference where one of the speakers describes himself as a SE, but if you look at his list of “companies,” none of them appear to be anything more than WordPress sites.

    It seems like a terrible marketing strategy anyway. Why would you call yourself a serial entrepreneur when the first thing people are going to think of is “serial killer,” because it’s the best-known profession with the word “serial” in it. You sound like someone who goes around murdering companies.

    Best of luck on the Utah launch!

  3. 26 May 2008 at 6:26 pm

    I have started three completely separate companies is why I have called myself that. I struggle with what to say I do, serial entrepreneur described it best, but for the killing part.
    The part I have trouble with, are those people, mostly third tier investors who give just a tiny bit of money to the start up guy, who then say THEY start companies. I guess we all have our hot buttons.
    But you are right, wordpress sites don’t qualify as a startup biz in my world either.
    Maybe “consistent entrepreneur” sounds better.

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