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AIQ
AIQ
7:08 AM
You are an economist, you believe that businesses, such as a restaurant chain or a fashion store, can greatly benefit from the application of data science or analytics. Businesses already have much of the needed data in the form of sales figures, stocks and inventories, purchases, profits, expenses, etc.
But they don't have the technical skills to use the data and improve their business models, say, they could benefit greatly from knowing what drives demand in their business, how much is demand affected by neighboring competitors, how can they improve customer experience and retention, etc.
Complete this for me, will ya, "There is a huge ______________ in the retail industry."
How would a native speaker say that in like one sentence?
 
 
4 hours later…
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
11:28 AM
@AIQ "There's a huge knowledge gap in the retail industry." I think.
I'm almost taking it to mean literally, but there's an entire hypothesis on it and I never explored the more intricate details.
 
 
5 hours later…
AIQ
AIQ
4:58 PM
@M.A.R. Ummm no but I am looking for sth more like there is a huge "opportunity" (??) to apply ... or sth like that ...
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Repeating characters in answer (81): "What is it like?" Vs. "What does it look like?" by Christopher Heins on ell.SE
 
Wistful
Wistful
5:36 PM
Do Americans really pronounce the 'to' in linked to with the TRAP vowel?
I tried to correct an answer and see what the answerer says: "No, I think you think you know more than you actually do and most of your "corrections" are inaccurate, as was the case here. And I have removed most of my comments as we are not supposed to chat here. The issue is that you pick, pick, pick and then it turns out you simply did not really get speech versus writing in this case. The ta sound is not a schwa as the er in ladder /ə/.Meanwhile, you've pretty much ruined my answer"
I told them it wasn't /æ/ but /ə/... they got infuriated....
They said in their answer: "Furthermore, the "to" becomes a quasi ta /æ/ [or /a/ in British English]: linkta this." /// That's incorrect.
According to this (misleading) answer, linked to becomes something like linktae....
 
Eddie Kal
Eddie Kal
6:25 PM
@Wistful What do you mean "trap vowel"? The vowel in "trap"?
 
 
3 hours later…
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:48 PM
@AIQ What does "opportunity" have to do with the speech before your word request? I'm not sure I understand
@EddieKal This, apparently
Trap–bath split
The trap–bath split (also TRAP–BATH split) is a vowel split that occurs mainly in mainstream and southeastern accents of English in England (including Received Pronunciation), in New Zealand English and South African English, and also to a lesser extent in Australian English as well as older Northeastern New England English (notably, older Boston accents), by which the Early Modern English phoneme /æ/ was lengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged with the long /ɑː/ of father. In this context, the lengthened vowel in words such as bath, laugh, grass, chance in accents affected by...
But it doesn't seem to be about any of the sounds in "linked"? It just seems to be about /æ/
 
AIQ
AIQ
@M.A.R. Well I am trying to say that there is a lot of ... ummm ... potential or scope to apply something which will tremendously improve results ...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@AIQ "There is a lot of room for optimization of . . ."
Or "the optimization"
"optimize" in general is a common word in managementese
(And it's OK in a CV, but might sound a bit bold depending on what you claim you can optimize)
 
Eddie Kal
Eddie Kal
10:08 PM
@M.A.R. yeah
 
AIQ
AIQ
@M.A.R. Oh it's not for my CV, it's for when I will be talking in my interview, and then I have the room to explain the statement ...
Like think about Africa and India. People say they are the next "China" in terms of cheap labour, raw materials, and investment costs. Big companies are looking at Africa to set up their factories there. Why? Because there is a huge _______ ???
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
10:42 PM
@AIQ for that they'd say "potential for growth" or "business opportunities"
"gold mine" in some contexts, hmm
"untapped workforce potential" hmm
2
"lasagna cheese sandwich"
2
 

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