I worked in the UK Civil service for a long while. The language barrier back in the late 1980s was a real thing[1]. While I had good English skills, I had never

I worked in the UK Civil service for a long while. The language barrier back in the late 1980s was a real thing[1]. While I had good English skills, I had never made it to university - unlike most of my colleagues. Oxbridge alumni were (still are?) over-represented, and the language I heard/had to learn felt very academic at times. Heck, when I started some of the Senior SC were still adding comments to minutes in Latin! The Plain English campaign - whose work has been excellent over the decades - and diversity in CS hiring, have hopefully broken the worst parts of the language barrier. [1] - silly example: while most of the office-working world would write a "memo", in CS Jargonese it was a "minute". To this day I have no idea why the distinction was important.