Portentous and Pretentious - Commonly Confused Words

The adjective portentous means ominous or momentous, referring to a sign or prediction that something important is about to happen. Portentous can also mean pompous or self-important. (This second meaning overlaps with that of pretentious.) The adjective pretentious means full of pretense, making excessive or unwarranted claims to be important or sophisticated. Notice how these two words are spelled: portentous ends in -tous; pretentious ends in -tious. Examples No one spoke. But they all knew this was a portentous moment, and that this day Mister Skye would say a thing that would affect their lives. (Richard S. Wheeler, North Star. Forge, 2009)The notepaper had been given her as a wedding present, embossed with a monogram of her new initials, by a Southampton aunt, boxes of it; Marcia had laughed, thinking it hideously pretentious, the essence of everything she had married Harold to escape, and used it so seldom, once the thank-you notes were written, that after twelve years it was not used up. (John Updike, Couples. Knopf, 1968)Elizabeth Bishops poetry is rarely portentous or grand, and never pretentious or grandiose. (Michael Ryan, A Difficult Grace: On Poets, Poetry, and Writing. University of Georgia Press, 2000)I must have parchment! Oh, but I like writing on parchment! Each time you turn a page it rumbles like thunder. My words are so portentous--thats portentous, dear, not pretentious—it seems appropriate. Like Jove. (David Bl ixt, The Master of Verona. St. Martins Press, 2007) Usage Notes [P]ortentous can be either ominous (a portentous event) or pompous (his portentous attitude); pretentious means pretending to be important. Since a pretentious person can also be pompous/portentous, theres a risk of confusion with these words. Prefer ominous or pompous to portentous.  (Wynford Hicks, Quite Literally: Problem Words and How to Use Them. Routledge, 2004)The main distinction is that a portentous man just might be as important as he seems, but a pretentious one cannot be as important as he claims. (Kenneth G. Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Columbia University Press, 1993)Portentous . . . used to mean portending evil; ominous and has come to mean pompous; self-important, possibly because it sounds like pretentious mixed with portly—but there is poetic justice in that, since pretentiousness can be ominous. (William Safire, On Language. The New York Times Magazine, June 7, 1981)

Slavery During The 19th Century Essay - 1423 Words

American’s who live in the 21st century know that slavery is terrible and also a touchy subject. But Americans used to rely heavily on slavery, how we perceive slavery in today’s society can either be the same or different from how others thought of slavery living within mid 1800s. People who resided in the northern region of American found slavery wrong as we do today. Americans who lived farther south however liked, and relied on slavery. In today’s world, we Americans almost all agree that slavery had been a negative factor of our country. But within the 1840s and 1870s, Americans had been divided by slavery. People that were against slavery created the union as the pro slavery citizens created the confederates. Today, we can see why people of the mid 19th century either supported slavery or rebelled against it by reviewing sources. The sources used to show how Americans thought of slavery comes from multiple chapters within the Sources for America’s History. Some of which, reflect some authors or speakers opinions as other are written observations or recorded council meetings. As stated, these are opinions respectively giving by the authors that can be either pro or anti abolishment enthusiast. Some of the abolitionist consist of David Walker, with his preamble to Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles (1830). Ethan Andrews was a professor of ancient languages at the University at the University of North Carolina. Ethan recorded his experiences with slave and slave owners asShow MoreRelatedSlavery During The 19th Century1636 Words   |  7 Pages# 2 In the early years of the 19th century, slavery was more than ever turning into a sectional concern, such that the nation had essentially become divided along regional lines. Based on economic or moral reasoning, people of the Northern states were increasingly in support of opposition to slavery, all the while Southerners became united to defend the institution of slavery. Brought on by profound changes including regional differences in the pattern of slavery in the upper and lower South, asRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century1780 Words   |  8 Pages 13 September 2015 Slavery in 17th Century VS Slavery in the late 19th Century Many people view slavery as one consecutive time period where African Americans were captured and kept to serve the needs of Caucasian individuals and families. But not very many people know the true extent of slavery among the colonies. Less are aware of the nature in which slavery evolved from a trading industry in the 17th century into its greater known state of forced labor in the 19th century. When most peopleRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century851 Words   |  4 Pages During the 19th century, the cause for abolition was ubiquitous to William Lloyd Garrison. In a society built on the freedoms for the average man, Garrison was justifiably astonished, often angered, by the misrepresentation and condoned treatment of African Americans. Garrison was not alone in his astonishment, there were a myriad of abolitionists, commonly found in the northern states, which protested and discussed how to achieve abolition. Despite the evident similarity of interests, GarrisonRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century1446 Words   |  6 Pagesand wonderful continent filled with luxurious and wealthy kingdoms, but that had all changed when a new and appalling type of slavery was introduced. Around the 18th century, Africa became an ideal place for Europeans to trade and buy slaves from. The slave trade in Africa seemed to be manageable and somewhat peaceful before the Europeans brought in a new type of slavery. When the Europeans bought slaves from Africans, they kep t them as slaves for life which were very different from how long slavesRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century2226 Words   |  9 Pages Slavery in America began once the first African slaves were born at the North yank colony of village, Virginia. Slavery was practiced throughout the yank colonies among the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and African-America. By the mid-19th century, America’s westward enlargement, in conjunction with a growing termination movement among the North, would provoke a wonderful dialogue over slavery which may tear the state apart among the bloody yank warfare. the legacy of slavery continued toRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century900 Words   |  4 Pages In the early 17th century, the system of racial slavery had yet to be established. Slavery in North America evolved unevenly over the years, and the nature of slavery changed according to time, region and the colonizer. Generally, slaves suffered from malnutrition, diseases, intense labor and physical abuse from the slaveowners. The life of plantation generation was much harder as compared to charter generation. These people hardly escaped slavery as manumission was strongly discouraged by theRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century1511 Words   |  7 PagesSlavery, an issue never addressed in the 19th century, but needed to be. It was a huge, controversial subject in the past, affecting the blacks, as well as the people of the North and South due to their strong beliefs and differences in opinion. Southerners treated slaves poorly because they believed they were better than African Americans. Though, we are all equal, the majority of people did not see the world that way back then . Slavery was unfair and had a horrible effect on the slaves. AlthoughRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century1212 Words   |  5 Pages During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Africans who remained enslaved were captured in battles or kidnapped. Some of these slaves were sold into slavery for debts. Once the slaves were in captivity, they would go through the â€Å"Middle Passage† which was a long journey that the slaves rode on in slave ships from West Africa to the West Indies for purchase. I think slavery led to racism because of everything that these slaves endured. It is there heritage just as I have mine. AfricanRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century2090 Words   |  9 Pages TITLE It all started in the 15th century, when the Portuguese began trading for slaves from West Africa. They used these slaves to work sugar plantations on the Madiera and Azores islands off the African coast. Because using slave labor to produce sugar was profitable, Europeans decided to adapt slavery in the newly established American colonies (Newman, John J. 6). When European settlers began staking claim on American land, they hit one major bump in the road. All of these rich wealthyRead MoreSlavery During The 19th Century895 Words   |  4 PagesDuring the 1800’s to 1850’s, slavery was undergoing a huge development in which helped the nation to grow into what it is today. The United States was split into two sections, the north and south, over the dispute of slavery. The south sought to further slavery while the north was in favor of abolishing slavery. Around 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, two politicians with completely different views on slavery fough t each other with politicians trying to win the presidency election of 1860

Impact of Ethical Values on Any Organisation

Question: Explain the impact of ethical values on any organisation and then discuss the consequences if any organisation cannot follow it then the complications the company has to face is the main concern of this study. Answer: Introduction Managerial Ethics refers to the process, which enables the organisational heads to understand what is right for the organisation and what is wrong to incorporate within it. Every company has a particular ethical principle that is followed by the organisation to drive their organisation in a smooth way. However, as stated by Dent and Whitehead, (2013), sometimes the organisations does not follow their ethical principles or intentionally disobey those values to get a higher growth and profit in the organisation that leads the company to face great failure or dilemma within it. In this study, the researcher has found out two ethical dilemmas, which were faced by the well-known technology company Apple Inc. In 2011, the company has experienced a severe employee abuse to gain a higher profit and organisational growth. Apart from this, the company has also faced a huge problem with the workers in China that led the company into a great controversy regarding the organisational ethical values. According to Frederickson and Ghere, (2013), Apple has faced this type of ethical dilemma many more time from their emergence in the market. The researcher has explained those ethical dilemmas in this study to evaluate the theories of managerial ethics in organisations and then discussed the role of the leaders in the organisation to improve their position in business. Discussion Apple Inc is one of the most popular technological companies in the world that produce various mobile phones as well as technological products that attract the customer with the innovative features and attractive designs. It mainly produces the electronic elements, computer software, hardware etc. The company was founded in the year of 1976 with the innovative view of Steve Jobs who has founded and developed the company to its peak level. It is mainly a US based company and spread its business all over the world very fast. In present time, the company has almost 478 stores in different areas of 17 countries with more than 115,000 employees (Hill, Jones Schilling, 2014). The company has gained the success with the tremendous level of good leadership by Steve Jobs and the highly skilled employees as their corporate culture that led them to achieve the success. According to Giacalone and Rosenfeld, (2013), the practice of evangelism in the corporate culture of Apple has promoted the co mpany before the customers and the unique work culture of the organisation. The dedicated and enthusiastic employees who were very efficient in working in the company have proved their ability with the expansion. The company has also practiced a particular ethics for employees that all have to follow. The main ethical concern of the company is to provide the same thing that they had promised before (Schaubroeck et al. 2012). This concern has led them to gain the customers trust on the products of the company. Apart from this, the company possess the creativity and innovativeness in the products that enables the company to attract the customers easily. The main motive of the company is to produce the products with advanced creativity. They practices main four principles within the organisation, such as, honesty, respect, confidentiality and compliance (Myers, 2013). According to Goetsch and Davis, (2014), if the company does not follow the principles therefore they have to face probl ems in their growth. Honesty and respect is very essential for the company, as they believe that without honesty no work can be done properly. If the employees remain honest in their working time, then the production will be increase and the productivity of the company will too increase automatically. They manufactured their products with very low labour cost that the cost of the manufactured products becomes very cheap that is affordable for customers. Nevertheless, this system has forced them to face the misconduct due to labour standards. Being practiced the ethical principles of honesty, respect, confidentiality and compliances the company has experienced some ethical issues within recent few years. Apple Inc has faced a severe accusation regarding dealing with the employees in 2011 that has created a great side effect on their business (Chan, Ma Wong, 2013). The main issue was regarding the employee abuse that they created in the greed of achieving a high growth and profit in business. As per the report, the company was accused that they were treating their employees in many areas very inhumanly, almost like machines. In that year, the company has implemented the strategy to hire employees to earn more profit and to increase their cost too. This was happening in the two factories of China that were faced severe employee abuse by the company. The plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen, this was reported more complaints about this. The truth was more pathetic when it is investigated properly (Hao, 2014). The company has unet hically hired the employees in those plants and after that; they did not able to give the proper working environment according to the employees. The company has kept the employees in a very inhumane condition that was against the ethics of the company. After investigation, the real picture was exposed that the employees were kept in the place where the working environment was not suitable to work neither in the working premises nor outside the work area. According to the ethics of the company it was allowed to force an employee to work around 40 hours in a week but Apple Inc was enforcing the employees in these plants to work more than 40 hours (Bai Morris, 2014). It was not ethically correct and for this the employees had to work forcefully to produce the Apple products that are very popular and was in demand that time due to the innovative and creativity if the products. Therefore, many employees had committed suicide for the excessive workload and the company has to face all the troubles during this. According to Lynn and Salzman, (2015), the Chinese law support one employee to work up to 36 hours per day as overtime but the company was compelling to work the employees almost 98 hours. It was almost three times more than the law and completely against the ethics of the company. Therefore, the decision of the company was proven wrong for this time and they had to face various problems regarding this decision of hiring so many employees at a time. The company has met another ethical issue in the next year of the employee abuse issue. In this time, the problem was again in the China and the issue was regarding the ethics about employees. The complaint was that the company was nit following the ethical values regarding the welfare of the employees (Haley, Haley Tan, 2012). This time the business chains in China had identified that, the company was using child labour in manufacturing iPhones, iPads etc. This was really a fact of concern that the company has created an ethical curse. As per the report, the company has used the employees in the supply chains of China to work overtime the rule. They reported that the company was forcing the employees to work almost 60 hours per week whether as per the rule they have not the rule to work more than 40 hours in a week. Apart from this, the main ethical disorder that the company had made was to appoint child labours in their factories (Hao, 2014). This has created a great concern among the people or the customers that they were engaging the children in their factories for work. Apple has used the employees to work more and more except their working hours and their working ability deteriorated. According to Parks, (2013), as Nike has faced huge criticism in the year of 1990 due to their wrong decision in developing sweatshops in Asia, likewise Apple has faced the same situation in this case. The main issue was regarding the competitive advantage that the company has gaining for their innovative products, which were manufactured from the Chinese supply chains but the company was giving very less share of the profit to the supply chain level companies. Therefore, they protested against the companys ethical decisions of involving the children as labour and for forcing the workers to work excessively overtime. There are many theories that are developed by various experts to show the way of managing an organisation. If any organisation does not possess a good management body then the company cannot reach the success that they want to (Robbins et al. 2013). Therefore, every company needs to follow a particular managerial skill to know the policies of leading the organisation to meet their organisational goals and objectives. According to Chan, Ma and Wong, (2013), as every organisation follows a particular ethical principle therefore they have to follow some theoretical views on this aspect. In this context, the theory of managerial ethics of Archie Carroll can be followed by the organisations. According to the theory of Carroll, it is a theory based on the social responsibility. As stated by Xu and Li, (2013), the theory refers to the management of the organisation that helps the management authority to manage the internal economical, legal, ethical, and philanthropic aspect of a company. I n this theory, the management have to take the responsibilities of the economic aspect upon which the whole organisation depends. If the management does not possess the responsibilities of producing goods and services that will be supportive to the society and the customers then the creditors and the stakeholders can repay it, which the management of Apple has not used in their organisation. Therefore, it led to the ethical dilemma in the decision-making. The main step of any management is to create the profit level upon which the future of any organisation depends. As opined by Cullen and Parboteeah, (2013), the economical responsibility of any management is very essential that it maximises the profit level of any organisation as well as the earning. In the present time, the competition is so high that every organisation needs to maintain their competitive efficiency to retain in the market. The definition of success is now depend on the profitability of any firm therefore, the man agement have to look after on this aspect more consciously that the organisation can gain as much as profit. According to the theory of Carroll, it is equally important to follow the rules in any organisations. The management have to follow the rules and regulations of the government and laws that Apple has not followed. Therefore, the management of any organisation should consult the various national regulations along with the supra-national or international regulations to comply. Apart from this, the most important thing is to follow the ethical values in an organisation that will teach the employees to do the right things in right way without doing any harm to anyone. Finally, the most important part of any corporate is to become a good corporate citizen. The Management have to concern about improvement of the organisational sales and profit to gain the trust of the customers. If Apple has implemented this theory in their organisation then the organisation will not focus only on the profit of the company but also the focus will diverted towards the ethical values as well as the social responsibilities, corporate citizenship and sustainability of the organisation. It will affect the environment and the life of normal people very positively that will be helpful for the company too. There is another managerial theory, Stakeholder Approach Theory that can also be applicable in these cases to manage the organisation effortlessly. The Freemans theory of ethical managerial helps the organisation to develop the idea about managing the organisation in way that will reflects on the organisational profit level and the relation between the external and internal entities of an organisation (Weiss, 2014). According to the theory of Freeman, every management should follow the responsibility of their own. Freeman has argued against the concept of social responsibility rather he suggested that the responsibility should reflected in the organisational behaviour according to the need of the business. As per the theory, the true business manager should be that person who can take the responsibility in a way that he can cut the costs of the products if required in an inflation situation and in between the relation with the stakeholders should be kept in priority order. Normally t he management of any organisation always try to implement the laws and regulations that will lead the company to meet the objectives as well as the organisational goals but in this time, they forget to think about their stakeholders. This theory makes understand the business owners to concentrate on the relationship making with the stakeholders, as they are the essential part of the organisation. However, sometimes the management need to focus on the market situation that requires some risky steps to handle the organisational profitability. Therefore, the theory refers to only one responsibility of the society on business growth, which the management have to incorporate, is the resources that Apple has failed to apply in their company. The management have to use those resources in their business to gain the profits. Apart from this, the management has to follow the rules and regulations of the company without involving in any kind of deception or fraud cases (Ciulla, 2014). In Apple , if the management has used the theory then the management have to take the responsibility to support the organisation in every situation. The company has applied some tricks to increase the profitability of their business but the tricks were proven wrong in their cases. On the other hand, they could not develop the proper relation with the stakeholders to get the support in their problem situation. The applications were completely not according to the theory as the theory has involved the rules and regulations to implement them in their organization, which Apple has not followed. Therefore, they have to face the issues regarding the legal rights in the supply chains of China. The role of leaders is mainly in leading the workforce in a particular way that the company too can gain the profit. One of the important roles that the leaders play in an organisation is to communicate with the workforce to understanding the consequences of different decisions (Kuntz et al. 2013). This will enable the leaders to understand the requirements and the fruitfulness of the strategy if implemented. If the leaders discuss with the workers in the organisation then the organisation will be benefitted with the strategy. Apart from this, the leaders can implement effective negotiation strategies to reduce conflict among workforce. If the leaders of any company use this as their strategy then the decisions will never unethical. The company will also be benefitted with this type of leadership. In Apple, they also can use this type of leadership to gain the actual profit, which will be more ethical and free of conflicts. Conclusion In this study, the researcher has observed that the ethical values are very essential for any organisation to follow. The researcher has explained the impact of ethical values on any organisation; and then discussed the consequences if any organisation cannot follow it then the complications the company has to face is the main concern of this study. The researcher has described the ethical issues related to Apple Inc that had created a lot of controversy regarding their unethical decisions. The main issues that Apple Inc have faced in 2011 and 2012 mainly in China regarding the unethical workload upon employees, which has led some employees to serious damage physically and mentally. This discussion has helped the researcher to find out two theories related to managerial ethics that can be implemented in the organisations to maintain the ethical issues. The researcher has also explored some leadership strategies for these organisations to avoid unethical decisions by involving the wor kforce in the decision-making. Reference List Bai, X., Morris, N. (2014). Leadership and virtue ethics: A Daoist approach.Public Integrity,16(2), 173-186. Chan, R. Y., Ma, K. H., Wong, Y. H. (2013). The Software Piracy Decision-Making Process of Chinese Computer Users.The Information Society,29(4), 203-218. Ciulla, J. B. (Ed.). (2014).Ethics, the heart of leadership. ABC-CLIO. Cullen, J., Parboteeah, K. P. (2013).Multinational management. Cengage Learning. Dent, M., Whitehead, S. (Eds.). (2013).Managing professional identities: Knowledge, performativities and the'new'professional(Vol. 19). Routledge. Frederickson, H. G., Ghere, R. K. (2013).Ethics in public management. ME Sharpe. Giacalone, R. A., Rosenfeld, P. (2013).Impression management in the organization. Psychology Press. Goetsch, D. L., Davis, S. B. (2014).Quality management for organizational excellence. pearson. Haley, G. T., Haley, U. C., Tan, C. (2012).New Asian emperors: The business strategies of the overseas Chinese. John Wiley Sons. Hao, Z. (2014). The Role of Intellectuals in Contemporary Chinas Labor Movement: A Preliminary Exploration. InSocial Issues in China(pp. 239-253). Springer New York. Hill, C., Jones, G., Schilling, M. (2014).Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning. Kuntz, J. R. C., Kuntz, J. R., Elenkov, D., Nabirukhina, A. (2013). Characterizing ethical cases: A cross-cultural investigation of individual differences, organisational climate, and leadership on ethical decision-making.Journal of Business Ethics,113(2), 317-331. Lynn, L., Salzman, H. (2015). Engineers, Firms and Nations: Ethical Dilemmas in the New Global Environment. InEngineering Ethics for a Globalized World(pp. 15-33). Springer International Publishing. Myers, M. . (2013).Qualitative research in business and management. Sage. Parks, H. C. (2013).Recognizing a Shift Toward Continued Secondary Orality: The iPhones Contribution to the Development of Human Communication(Doctoral dissertation, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo). Robbins, S., Judge, T. A., Millett, B., Boyle, M. (2013).Organisational behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU. Schaubroeck, J. M., Hannah, S. T., Avolio, B. J., Kozlowski, S. W., Lord, R. G., Trevio, L. K., ... Peng, A. C. (2012). Embedding ethical leadership within and across organization levels.Academy of Management Journal,55(5), 1053-1078. Weiss, J. W. (2014).Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Xu, K., Li, W. (2013). An ethical stakeholder approach to crisis communication: A case study of Foxconns 2010 employee suicide crisis.Journal of business ethics,117(2), 371-386.

The Ladder Essays - , Term Papers, Research Papers

The Ladder The Ladder A brisk autumn wind combing through my hair and the early morning daystar barely peering over the roof of the brick high school building at 7 oclock. The day, three years ago in the tenth grade, seemed so much like all the other days. If only I knew that my experience that day would change my insight of how the world operates, at least the small world I was living in at the time. In rural areas, it is common to see underage drivers cruising down the road in a beat up pick-up truck. To see a boy at school with a pocketknife was even more common. Well, it just so happened that I was a boy with an Uncle Henry pocketknife on that ordinary fall day. I, and everyone else, knew that it was against school policy to have a weapon, even a pocketknife. No one said anything because no one cared. I used my pocketknife as a handymans apparatus. I used it to cut, open, pry, screw, or whatever else. It was my tool, and I usually didnt go anywhere without it. However, I wished I had left my multi-purpose gadget at home that day. The day started going bad when an enemy of mine, an upper classman, Justin, was hanging out in our territory. He and I never really got along. He was thuggishly leaning up against the brick building in his shoddy tennis shoes, faded Levi jeans, and an un-tucked, tacky-worn shirt. Just the sight of him made me want to bruise him up a bit. He broke the silence with what seemed like an eruption from his benighted brain. How come you get here so early? he asked, with an unnerving grin remaining on his face. Plainly, almost in monotone, I replied, I have to. My mom has to go to work early. He questioned me again, Why dont you get a job and buy a car? He was already getting on my nerves, so, I replied sharply, I dont even have my license. And where can I work around here? I cant drive to work anyways. He then started the trouble. He said, Whatever, you are just a big mommas boy and a spoiled brat at that. I quickly replied, Youre not going to think that when I cut your balls off with this knife, simultaneously bringing out my knife and opening the small 3 inch blade. And this little blade is all it will take! He walked away mumbling nonsense under his breath. I replaced my Uncle Henry and continued my day to my first class. I then continued my daily journey on to second period. My routine, however, was suddenly interrupted at the end of second period. I was summoned to the office. I was totally shocked and had no idea why I had to go. The minor incident with Justin had completely slipped my mind. My useful companion had cut my way into the office. I was sure of the wan, concerned expression on my face; I was concerned about the severity of my punishment. Sitting in the office chair, slightly slouched, my Adams apple swelling, nearly constricting my breathing, I wouldnt move because of the high pitched noise that the vinyl chair made. I felt that the punishment was already being enforced. Coach Taylor, the assistant principal, stared at me with a troubled demeanor. He asked, Mr. Ragsdale, is it true that you have a weapon of some sort in your possession? No, sir, I answered solemnly. Well, he started, in a matter of fact tone, I have received an accusation from an anonymous source that you have a pocketknife. Is this true? Still somber, I replied Yes, sir. Could you give it to me, please? he asked. Yes, sir, I said while handing my gadget to him. Thank you, he said, seeming satisfied. We then took a trip to Mr. Reeds office, the principal. Coach Taylor, Mr. Reed, and I were in a confined space, surrounded by two dead deer, two dead ducks, a dead goose, a dead bobcat, and a dead fox squirrel, all of which were looking at me. Mr. Reed began his speech, probably unheard by Coach Taylor and himself, and surely unheard by me. His empty words about what