Posted on 12/11/2006 1:58:29 AM PST by Mrs Ivan
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
The real last name of my Analytical Geometry professor!
French envy explosion alert...
Funny, when I was in school, that was called "pidgin." I guess "pidgin" couldn't be trademarked to sell books and take a swipe at Anglophones. None of this is new, and none of it is rocket science.
Simple words, simple sentence structure, hand gestures where they help, and maybe a few words of French, Spanish or the local language if you know them and they help. Avoid jokes and especially sarcasm, because they don't translate. When I was in Thailand, I fell into it in a day or two.
It's fine for telling a cab driver where to go or ordering a meal, but I don't see a 1,500 word vocabulary being sufficient for complex business dealings.
There was a passage in Orwells classic book "1984" where the IngSocs were boasting of the fact that their language was actually losing words each year.
Leave it to the French to be proud of doing just that.
L
“One thing you never do in Globish is tell a joke."
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Sounds as though the Germans will be adopting it soon! ;)
He confirms what I always suspected: They all understand English, if you speak loudly and slowly enough. Even the French. Now, if only the Brits...
"A German joke is nothing to laugh at." - Mark Twain
Ach! Du Lieber Himmel!
There is a microsoft Word plugin floating around call either Bullshitfigher or Bullfighter that strips out all Clintonesque mealy mouth language and also corporate middle management meaningless trivial language.
It's quite fun to take a C Span transcript and put it through the Bull filter.
Lol.
What would we do without our common language misunderstandings?
I always crack up when Americans use the term fanny!
Twits!
Absolutely right. My German is by no means fluent and I survived five years in Germany using this technique!
Ok, so there is also the opposite to the free Bullfighter software.
http://www.whitesmoke.com/ is software made to increase the meaningless catch phrases in your Word documents, as a design feature. And they want you to pay for it.
Now if we can make it run backwards we'll all be promoted to the Board of Directors someplace.
L
I spent 1.5 years in England fifteen years ago, in the East Anglia region. I spent lots of time in Cambridge and London as well. Churchill said that the British and Americans were one people separated by a common tongue, but I was disappointed by my lack of adventures with our common tongue.
Everybody I met were easily understandable, with only a few exceptions, even in Scotland.
Boardroom here I come!
L
Here in Slovakia, I teach English conversation in private and company lessons.
English is the international business language, and there is a great demand for native speakers.
I can find all the work I want.
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