Well, my friends, it’s Monday — and it feels like it haha. After a pleasant weekend, here I am at 4:30 on Monday morning slaving away in the word mines. But that’s okay! I actually enjoy the labor.
Let’s take a look at some of the gems I’ve uncovered while digging through money articles this morning…
Money is the megaphone of identity. [More to That] — “When you take a look at your bank account balance, what do you feel? Well, if you’re a part of the 28% of Americans that have no emergency savings whatsoever, the answer to that question will likely be a combination of fear and anxiety. When the sole purpose of money is to provide for the basic necessities of life, then your relationship with it will be a shaky one. Scarcity creates fragility.” I really like this piece. It’s long, but worth it.
How women can take control of their financial lives. [Barron’s] — “Women of all ages, education levels, and income brackets are still behind the times when it comes to taking control of their big-picture financial decisions…Are we generalizing? You bet. But as loathsome as the notion of stereotyping women as being no-good-at-the-money-stuff is, there’s an alarming amount of data demonstrating that women in general simply don’t engage with their finances often, or thoroughly, enough.”
Does expensive wine taste better? [Kent Hendricks] — “The answer to the question — does expensive wine really taste better? — is not such an answer. Instead, this answer is a series of layers, each one more complicated than the last, and each one introducing a new set of questions — and a new set of revelations about taste, status, and perception.”
To wrap things up, here’s a fun 26-minute video from 1957 that demonstrates the difference between American dialects and accents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ZNnlYvXw0
I’ve been fascinated by dialect (and language usage) differences for a while now, and there are a couple of points worth noting.
- First, our accents don’t just vary by location; they also vary across time. If you watch clips of people — especially kids — talking in the 1940s and 1950s, they speak differently than we do today.
- Second, mass media has weakened regional dialect differences. Yes, they still exist, no doubt. But movies, then television, and now the internet have all conspired to make our speech more standardized than in the past.
Okay, that’s plenty for a Monday. I’ll see you again tomorrow with more stories about how to master your money — and your life.