What is marketing?

[Tim Parkin]

David Mertz
>Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> wrote previously:
>|Many techies think of "marketing" as a dirty word because it's so
often
>|misused as an inappropriate synonym for "selling".
>
>  marketing
>  1. The act or process of buying and selling in a market.
>  2. The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from
>     producer to consumer.
>  --------------------
>  The American Heritage (r) Concise Dictionary of the English Language,
>  Third Edition.   Copyright (c) 1992 Houghton Mifflin Company.
>
>In other words, 'marketing' is a synonym for 'selling' (commercially).
>
>The neutral word that Alex is looking for is 'promotion', which has a
>subtle but important difference from the dirty word.

This is totally misconstrued pedantry 

Sell - 7 a Advertise or publish the merits of.
         b give (a person) information on the value of something.
           inspire with a desire to buy or acquire or agree to
something.

Tim