Business Communication

 “…for the businessman, the greatest gift is to be able to speak so many words which seem to signify something but don’t, which convey a general attitude but are free from commitment.”

For 3 years I studied business and desperately groped for words to describe the exasperating imprecision of every statement I read. Mr. R.K. Narayan puts it so accurately, succinctly and seemingly effortlessly, that I’m afraid I may have become a business(wo)man myself.  

Much as I lament the English language’s limitations for expressing romanticism, I must praise its pliability for business: the scope for ambiguity is immense.

That said I’m quite scandalised with my English these days. It started when I first discovered online dictionaries that would pronounce words like the Americans and the British do: I realised that I didn’t speak like either of them and to add to it, my pronunciation didn’t even resemble the spelling – I was wrong in every way it was possible to be wrong.

We don’t realise how much of the “good English” we speak is actually very bad English. Being able to string a sentence together is hardly indicative of mastery of the language. If the British ever come back to visit they’ll never guess that we’re speaking their language. We can try to speak in a polished accent or use big words, but speaking correctly is a far cry for most of us, and is unlikely to become a reality unless we decide to spend a lot of time scanning Wren & Martin (oh, you boys) and listening to that stuck up witch on TFD speak “propahly” everyday.