Business
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling goods or services. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit. It does not mean it is a company, a corporation, partnership, or have any such formal organization, but it can range from a street peddler to General Motors." The term is also often used colloquially (but not by lawyers or public officials) to refer to a company, but this article will not deal with that sense of the word.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and involves an analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context. The earliest activities in the documentation and description of language have been attributed to the 6th century BC Indian grammarian Pāṇini, who wrote a formal description of the Sanskrit language in his Aṣṭādhyāyī.
Research
Research comprises "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories. A research project may also be an expansion on past work in the field. Research projects can be used to develop further knowledge on a topic, or in the example of a school research project, they can be used to further a student's research prowess to prepare them for future jobs or reports. To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole. The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge. Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences. There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, social, business, marketing, practitioner research, life, technological, etc.
Business
I never can make out how it is that a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but a peddler-errant always does.
John Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive: Three Lectures on Work, Traffic, War (1866), p. 127.
Business
Everybody knows by now, all businessmen are completely full of shit; just the worst kind of low-life, criminal, cocksuckers you could ever wanna' run into – a fuckin' piece of shit businessman. And the proof of it, the proof of it is, they don't even trust each other. They don't trust one another. When a business man sits down to negotiate a deal, the first thing he does is to automatically assume that the other guy is a complete lying prick who's trying to fuck him outta his money. So he's gotta do everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit faster and a little bit harder. And he's gotta do it with a big smile on his face. You know that big, bullshit businessman smile? And if you're a customer – Whoah! – that's when you get the really big smile. Customer always gets that really big smile, as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer, and unzips his pants, and proceeds to service...the...account. 'I am servicing this account. This customer needs service.' Now you know what they mean. Now you know what they mean when they say, 'We specialize in customer service.' Whoever coined the phrase 'let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole. That's business.
George Carlin, You Are All Diseased (1999)
