No, you are not looking at the wrong blog. This title, that is well known in France, can freely be translated in "Mr. Englishmen, please shoot first...". It goes back to the time of the archeries.
Now, why use this as a title. Well to highlight another aspect of global collaboration. English is the only language that is spoken more by non native speakers than by native speakers. It is actually a very rich language which has a lot of nuances. Listening to British humor is one of the best ways to experience that. Unfortunately, most of the non native speakers do not know these nuances and will make mistakes all the time. Messieurs les Anglais, keep that into account and do not get upset when you hear something that may sound rude
.
I remember, years ago, I was responsible for the beta test of a product that my company was going to sell. We tested the product with a local company in Belgium. The development team, based in the US, was asking for our feedback. And we gave them feedback:
- You must include this function
- You must change the human interface in this way
- You must interface with this device
You probably already realize what happened. We completely pissed of the development team. When I went to visit them, they beat me up. You cannot tell us what we have to do. We should have used other words. We did not realize that the word "must" has a much harder meaning in English than in Dutch or French.
My request is actually pretty simple. Keep in mind that not everybody you talk to is as fluent as you are in English. It may avoid a lot of bad feelings.
1 comment:
Thanks, Christian.
You're advice is very relevant to me because of how incredible I find it that something I can write in an instant could possibly be seen by anyone in the world.
Should I have made that sentence above simpler? It is hard to write a complex statement simply.
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