COLOGNE -- I am eating sausages at Cologne / Bonn International Airport. Konrad Adenauer International Airport.

10 points to those of you below aged 65 who know who Konrad Adenauer was...

No, Germans can't answer.

Well the Lufthansa lounge here is not so hot. Like a high school rec room. Without the charm.

I was editing a document for Melcrum last night. Someone called me up and asked me a lot of questions and then I was sent an article. And it was on the subject of offshoring. I think. But one of the questions they asked in follow up was about the implications of English being a lingua franca.

I said -- and think I believe -- that with more people speaking English as a second language than a first language, communicators were going to have to adjust.

So, let me say that in a more coherent way.

More than half of the world's English-speakers speak English as a second language. So, I maintained that people who are professional communicators will need to adjust for that.

Melcrum (Sue Dewhurst actually) asked "how?"

And that is a perfectly good question.

Three ways:

1) Use of jargon
We will have to start using the base language for most of our global communications. Example, today I told a group of international business that Social Media is currently and anarchic business and disintermediation is a key cause of the drive to social media.

Huh?

I was able to explain both, but had to draw attention to both as jargon. I could have said it differently.

2) Local dialects
I find fewer and fewer people in the UK are saying "lorry" and more are saying "truck". Too bad, lorry is a nicer word. But some words don't last.

On the other hand, in the English of France and Quebec it is perfectly normal to talk about someone being an "animator" of a workshop. Lots of these local usages persist. They add character and also meaning for local audiences.

3) Assumptions of understanding
There are many people who speak well but understand little (like my lovely mother-in-law) or who don't speak well but understand everything (like my father-in-law). So long as they travel together, they're fine. But you can't assume that of your audiences. And any assumptions about language skills can be insulting.

Not least in places like Germany and Spain where a lot of pride is at stake.

Hasta la proxima.

/df