Re: verboten WAS: Insider #59: IDS Express

Imagine my surprise upon discovering that Americans, most of whom will exert precisely no effort to learn a foreign language, Ah - that's where we Brits are superiour (sorry) in respect of the fact that not only do people outside our Foreign Office and Diplomatic Corps have passports, but while abroad we would never fail to take the appropriate steps to communicate effectively with foreign nationals appropriately. for those of you have not had the joy of witnessing the charm and grace of the Brit abroad, the protocol is, when the foreigner fails to grasp what has been said to revert to the language of the country concerned. Apparently in most cases this is best achieved by REPEATING THE SAME THING .... AGAIN ...... WITH CONFUSING ...... PAUSES. Alternatively, depending upon the level of alcohol consumption - questioning the sexuality, provinance of the mother of the person concerned or their relationship with their right hand - while throwing a random popular name from that, or any other, country - is apparently a sure fire way of putting across your point without causing deep humiliation to those nearby. Still - it's probably the fault of the vendor or service sector worker concerned having sweated since the age of six listening to the world service and walking to fields miles away to spend 12 hours a day in back breaking labour in some god forsaken armpit of the gobal agricuulture industry to pay for English language courses, only to find that - regrettably, the tuition failed to cover the 'Ignorant, bigoted b*st*rd' dialect. Or the fact they're Danish or dutch and actually speak English better. Mind - having lived here for 41 years, half of what they are saying baffles me at times. but then again, I don't watch East Enders. Should you fail to communicate effectively using either of these methods, or by getting drunker, it is important to appologise gracefully before retiring. The correct form of address is "WHASSAMARAAAYEW WHHANKAHHHH DEWN'CH YEWSPEEEKFACHINENGERRRRLISSCH?" Precicely what this means - I am at a loss to say. Suffice to say, if it means what I think it means, it is entirely unsurprising thath Brit tourists are not universally popular. Ayobuwan (I'm not really Sri Lankan - they're usually far too polite to post something like this. Lovely place - go, I did, I loved it and I can be the world's biggest cynic) <snip> Of course, the British use foreign words, too, but Americans tend to be a little more proprietary. Once we take a word from your language, you may never recognise it, again. For that matter, the Brits can barely recognise what we've done with their entire language. I am, frankly, at a total loss as to what we've done with most of it! Particularly management. for example - the word 'Proactive'. A perfectly good word IMHO, eg, "We need to be proactive" - which in managementspeak roughly translates as "Oh, you told me tat this avoidable f**kup was going to happen x months ago if we didn't do Y. I told you not to do Y and we are now hosed. Rather than address this problem we need someone to blame - I vote for you" Or 'Negative' "Look - Z problem has occured, we need to be positive (another one - don't get me started) and address the issues and focus on how this happened (blame the previous manager, so I can wash my hands and fail to address the issue)." "Umm - rather than do that - we can do A, B, and C, solve the problem and also solve problems with D and E" "Andrew, if you're just going to be negative - is there any point in you taking part in this meeting!"