whopping, per se,activate,linked-in intrinsically linked to self-interest

A whopping 97% of eligible voters have registered.

A whopping 20 to 30 percent of Afghanistan's economy is linked to opium poppy cultivation.

Analysts at U.K.-based Centre for Retail Research expect the royal birth to boost linked-in retail sales in the U.K. by £243 million during the nine weeks in July and August.


Where did the world's top business leaders get their supply of rose-tinted spectacles? A whopping 96% of them are either very or reasonably confident in the outlook for their companies over the next 24 months, according to a survey of 1,000 company chiefs world-wide carried out by lawyers Allen & Overy. That seems to run counter to other signs companies are hoarding cash amid a period of global economic turbulence, after the U.S.'s debt downgrade and the euro-zone crisis.




Do you see the same phenomenon, this trend toward individualism, also in Europe?
Yes. I think the same thing is true everywhere, because the pressure of neoliberal economics has certainly been great in Europe and in England. On the other hand you do have traditional communities that the United States doesn't have because we never were a traditional country. And the other thing is that Americans hate government. Europeans realize government has a few good things to do, so it's a little harder to make the government itself per se a demon. And I think although the welfare state has been weakened in Europe, it's not as in much danger as here.

per se
(pər sā', sē')
adv.
Of, in, or by itself or oneself; intrinsically.

[Latin per sē : per, per + sē, itself.]

Utility executives big political donors in Japan
The Associated Press
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese utility company executives were by far the biggest individual donors to Japan's former ruling party during its last year in power, accounting for a whopping 72 percent of personal contributions, a news report said. ...

Asian and Middle Eastern airlines’ share of the world’s aircraft fleet is set to grow
BY THE third day of the Farnborough Airshow on Wednesday July 21st, aircraft-makers had announced new orders worth around $25 billion. A whopping $9 billion order for 40 Boeing 777s from Emirates highlighted the ambitious expansion plans of the Gulf’s airlines. Analysis by Ascend, an aerospace consultancy, shows that the Middle Eastern airlines’ fleets have more than doubled in the past ten years. They have placed orders for over 1,000 new aircraft for delivery by 2020—or 14% of the industry’s entire order book. Even so, the Asian airlines, especially China’s, will be the planemakers’ biggest customers in the coming decade. By 2020, the North American and European airlines will no longer dominate the skies to the extent they do now.
...

surprise, surprise, whopping, hot water

Homeowners aren’t the only ones in hot water over overpriced real estate. A New York City hot dog vendor has been evicted from his prize spot outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art because he couldn’t pay a whopping rent bill of nearly $54,000 a month.
房屋所有人並非唯一飽受高房價之苦的人。一名紐約市熱狗小販因為付不出將近5萬4000美元的龐大月租費，被從大都會博物館外的這個絕佳（賣熱狗）地點趕走。張沛元

新聞辭典
whopping：形容詞，巨大的；副詞，非常地。
Slang.
adj.
Exceptionally large: "yet another whopping pay raise" (Lee Atwater).

adv.
Used as an intensive: a whopping good joke.

[Present participle of WHOP .]

The shoes are designed only for walking, and because of the instability design, wearers are discouraged from running, jumping and engaging in other athletic activities while wearing them. So the real effect may come from simple awareness that they are wearing a muscle-activating shoe, causing them to walk more briskly and with purpose.

Working paper: The Devil Wears Prada? Effects of Exposure to Luxury Goods on Cognition and Decision Making

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6317.htmlDownload the PDF. Gandhi once wrote that "a certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help." This observation raises interesting questions for psychologists regarding the effects of luxury. HBS professor Roy Y.J. Chua and Xi Zou argue that luxury goods can activate the concept of self-interest and affect subsequent cognition. The argument involves two key premises: Luxury is intrinsically linked to self-interest, and exposure to luxury can activate related mental representations affecting cognition and decision-making. Two experiments showed that exposure to luxury led people to think more about themselves than others.

intrinsical

【形容詞】

1

ものごとの本質そのものに属しているさま
(belonging to a thing by its very nature)

link  1

Syllabification: (link)

Pronunciation: /liNGk/

Translate link | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish

noun

• 1a relationship between two things or situations, especially where one thing affects the other:investigating a link between pollution and forest decline
• a social or professional connection between people or organizations:he retained strong links with the media
• something that enables communication between people:sign language interpreters represent a vital link between the deaf and hearing communities
• a means of contact, travel, or transport between two points or places:they set up a satellite link with Tokyo a rail link from Newark to Baltimore
• Computing a code or instruction that connects one part of a program or an element in a list to another.
• short for hyperlink.

• 2a ring or loop in a chain.
• a unit of measurement of length equal to one hundredth of a surveying chain (7.92 inches).

verb

• make, form, or suggest a connection with or between: [with object]:rumors that linked his name with Judith foreign and domestic policy are linked [no object]:she was linked up with an artistic group
• connect or join physically: [with object]:a network of routes linking towns and villages the cows are linked up to milking machines [no object]:three different groups, each linking with the other
• Computing create a hyperlink between (web pages or hypertext documents):I’ve had problems linking my blog to other websites [no object]:it turns out he reads my blogs and was very pleased I’d linked to his article
• [with object] clasp; intertwine:once outside he linked arms with her

Origin:

late Middle English (denoting a loop; also as a verb in the sense 'connect physically'): from Old Norse hlekkr, of Germanic origin; related to German Gelenk 'joint'