Verbs such as enjoy in the student enjoyed the book exhibit logical metonymy: enjoy is interpreted as enjoy reading. Theoretical work (Pustejovsky, 1991, 1995) predicts that this interpretation can be influenced by intra-sentential context, e.g., by the subject of enjoy. In this article, we test this prediction using a completion experiment and find that the interpretation of a metonymic verb i...

According to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China and the effective conventions therein, every citizen should enjoy equal right of social security. But in reality, a peasant has much less such right than an urban dweller, only because of their different hukou. Peasants, as part of the investors of state-owned property, should have the rights of owners and enjoy the benefits from t...

In the past decade, virtual worlds have demonstrated the potential to be the next generation of interface for entertainment, interaction, content, and e-commerce. As a major type of virtual worlds, online games become a huge business and engage millions of players around the world. However, e-commerce researchers have so far paid insufficient attention to why players enjoy using virtual game wo...

In this edition of Healthcare Papers, Sutherland and colleagues reflect on their experiences developing a pan-Canadian picture of quality measurement (Sutherland and Leatherman 2010). Their review points out shortcomings, gaps and variations in how we measure and report on the performance of our healthcare system. The picture is not good. It is no better when we consider what the actual data sa...

This paper examines the persuasiveness of assertive language (as in Nike’s slogan “Just do it”) as compared to nonassertive language (as in Microsoft’s slogan “Where do you want to go today?”). Previous research implies that assertive language should reduce consumer compliance. Two experiments show that assertiveness is more effective in communications involving hedonic products, as well as hed...