The concept of relationship marketing has been discussed among marketing academics and managers since the early 1980s. But instead of reaching its maturity stage, relationship marketing is nowadays encountering its next upsurge. Due to a confluence of trends driving the global business world-including the transition to service-based economies, faster product commoditization, intensified competition worldwide, growth among emerging markets, aging populations, advertising saturation, and (above all) the digital age-strong customer relationships are more than ever vital to company strategy and performance. Relationship Marketing in the Digital Age provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art of relationship marketing, offering fruitful insights to marketing scholars and practitioners. In seven chapters, divided into two main sections on understanding (Part I) and effectively applying (Part II) relationship marketing, an introductory and a concluding chapter, readers learn how to successfully manage customer-seller relationships.

The concept of relationship marketing has been discussed among marketing academics and managers since the early 1980s. But instead of reaching its maturity stage, relationship marketing is nowadays encountering its next upsurge. Due to a confluence of trends driving the global business world-including the transition to service-based economies, faster product commoditization, intensified competition worldwide, growth among emerging markets, aging populations, advertising saturation, and (above all) the digital age-strong customer relationships are more than ever vital to company strategy and performance. Relationship Marketing in the Digital Age provides a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art of relationship marketing, offering fruitful insights to marketing scholars and practitioners. In seven chapters, divided into two main sections on understanding (Part I) and effectively applying (Part II) relationship marketing, an introductory and a concluding chapter, readers learn how to successfully manage customer-seller relationships.

Each of the more than seven hundred entries in the dictionary contains a description of the historical background of each of the two types of language, literal and nonliteral, and provides an explanation for the relationship between them. Wherever possible, dates of first record in English are provided, along with the bibliographical sources of these dates; and all of the works that record those terms and expressions are given in coded form as listed in the Key to Works Cited.

A Guide to Reading the Entries illustrates the typical form of an entry by analyzing an example from the dictionary that introduces five nonliteral expressions, cites thirteen bibliographical sources, and refers the reader to three other relevant entries by means of cross-references. Following the dictionary proper is a Classification of Terms According to Source, in which nearly three hundred nonliteral terms and expressions are listed under the more than four hundred literal categories from which they derive.

provide s] informative and entertaining browsing, depicting how filled our language is with sports metaphors, many of whose derivations are little known: the devil to pay, ' hazard a guess, ' red herring, ' etc. Even libraries with numerous other sports dictionaries will want this work. Recommended for high school, public, and academic libraries. "Choice"

This comprehensive dictionary brings together for the first time the popular words and expressions in American English that derive from terms associated with sports, games, and recreation. Many of these terms are now an integral part of the language, with others joining them all the time. The more than 1,700 terms in the dictionary are arranged alphabetically by first word. Full entries follow. At the end of the book a useful appendix classifies the metaphors according to the sports from which they originate.

Each entry in this exhaustive resource contains an example of the popular use of the metaphor, indicating its part of speech; a definition of the metaphor; an identification of the probable source of the term; a definition of the metaphor as used within the sport or game of origin; a citation of other reference works; a discussion of how the term evolved from sports to popular use; and cross-references to other entries. The entries are preceded by a key which decodes the abbreviations used for other reference works and are followed by the source list of metaphors. "Sports Talk" is an essential resource for teachers, journalists, historians, linguists, etymologists, coaches, and others interested in sports and the language.

No other nonhuman source has served as the basis for more metaphors than animals. Speaking of Animals is a dictionary of animal metaphors that are current in American English. It is comprehensive, historical, and metaphor-based. Each entry refers to the other dictionaries that catalog that same metaphor, and the dates of first appearance in writing are supplied, where possible, for both the metaphor and the name of the source. The main text is organized alphabetically by metaphor rather than by animal or animal behavior; all the metaphors are classified according to their animal source in a list at the end of the book. An animal metaphor is a word, phrase, or sentence that expresses a resemblance or similarity between someone or something and a particular animal or animal class. "True" metaphors are single words, such as the noun tiger, the verb hog, and the adjective chicken. Phrasal metaphors combine true metaphors with other words, such as blind tiger, hog the road, and chicken colonel. Other animal metaphors take the form of similes, such as like rats leaving a sinking ship and prickly as a hedgehog. Still others take the form of proverbs, such as Don't count your chickens before they hatch and Let sleeping dogs lie. The horse is the animal most frequently referred to in metaphors, followed closely by the dog. The Bible is the most prolific literary source of animal metaphors, followed closely by Shakespeare.