7 ms·
Advice to a Young Tradesman (1748)
- peteradio 8y agoSummary: Live within your means. Invest well. Collect what's yours. Trifling expenses add up. Time is money.
- mcguire 8y agoPay what you owe, when you owe it.
- waffleguy 8y agoIsn’t that what living in your means mean by definition?
- war1025 8y agoI think they're different. "Live within your means" is basically don't overextend yourself to live a life you can't actually afford "Pay what you owe when you owe it" means that if you said you'd pay somebody, make sure to do so on time. It's entirely possible to be living within your means but still have a bad habit of paying your bills weeks late.
- tlarkworthy 8y agoI did not know that style of title was so old. I assumed it was crafted by digital metric driven forces.
- Xophmeister 8y ago> Hitherto we solicit advise to our merry apprentice; thou won’t believeth doctrine 3!
- gerbilly 8y agoVerily I say unto you, if your left had should prevent your right hand from clinking on this headline, then you should cut off your left hand, and cast it away..."
- frosted-flakes 8y agoI found the contraction of them to 'em interesting, and it flowed rather well. I wonder why it fell out of use?
- wankeler 8y agoIt hasn’t. Not in England anyway. “Go get ‘em boy”
- bovermyer 8y agoIt hasn't. I still hear it occasionally, and use it myself.
- hellofunk 8y agoI've been saying that all my life, as most of the people in my family and many friends.
- richardfontana 8y agoEtymologically speaking, it's not a contraction, but a preservation of an old 3rd person plural pronoun form (from Middle English "hem"): see https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/'em https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/'em
- archon 8y agoI don't think it ever fell out of use, it just isn't written. I'm from the US south, I use both "them" and "'em" in everyday speech depending on context, but I never write "'em", even where I would use it in speech. This is partially because "'em" in written form ends up conveying a slightly different tone or meaning than I might intend. "Them" is just a word; "'em" has more nuance and is more easily misunderstood.
- frosted-flakes 8y agoThat's what I meant, in writing. Of course, it's still spoken that way.
- 8y ago
- bovermyer 8y agoI have to wonder how far back that advice goes. It's oft repeated, to the tune of new wisdom being discovered and brought to the masses, and nary a single thought given to whence it originally came nor whether it is, indeed, new.
- freakz 8y agoGood to see good ol' Benjamin Franklin pirating other people's work.
- cwbrandsma 8y agoGreat artists steal.
- mcguire 8y agoResearch. It's research.
- jeremydeanlakey 8y ago> The most trifling Actions that affect a Man’s Credit, are to be regarded. The Sound of your Hammer at Five in the Morning or Nine at Night, heard by a Creditor, makes him easy Six Months longer. > never keep borrow’d Money an Hour beyond the Time you promis’d, lest a Disappointment shuts up your Friends Purse forever. > the good Paymaster is Lord of another Man’s Purse. He that is known to pay punctually and exactly to the Time he promises, may at any Time, and on any Occasion, raise all the Money his Friends can spare. > Creditors are a kind of People, that have the sharpest Eyes and Ears, as well as the best Memories of any in the World. Credit scores have replaced reputation and credit has become very impersonal. Interestingly, most of this seems more applicable than ever... with the exception of banging your hammer at 5 am.
- mcguire 8y agoMaybe, but not in all environments. It would be interesting to update these for the VC economy.
- alehul 8y agoThe above is a debt investment, whereas VCs are generally looking at equity investments. These are fairly different in principle and strategy, and both have history dating back many hundreds of years.
- mcguire 8y agoYes, but. You don't have to pay back the money, but you do have to be seen working hard. You have to maintain good relations with your funders. The principles are the same.
- ibeckermayer 8y agoFantastic point. Credit scores allow for greater “efficiency”, but don’t necessarily capture all the relevant information. There is a common problem of seeing quantitative measurements as “more objective” than qualitative evaluations, but this is oftentimes naive. Notice that many of the best VC’s focus on the individuals and group dynamics of the founding team, something that can’t be captured quantitatively. “Giving someone no map is much, much better than giving him a wrong map.” — Nassim Taleb
- keeganjw 8y agoWas it the norm then to capitalize every noun in English like German still does today?
- momentmaker 8y agoReminds me of the advices given in the book: The Richest Man in Babylon.
- hadsed 8y agoSame. A fantastic book.
- nickelcitymario 8y agoKey takeaway for me: > In short, the Way to Wealth, if you desire it, [...] depends chiefly on two Words, Industry and Frugality; i.e. Waste neither Time nor Money, but make the best Use of both.
- bungie4 8y agoReminds me a lot of PT Barnums article on Money written in 1880. A lot is still applicable today. https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/