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Good piece; this whole thing, though, reminds me of something I read in Carl Sagan's "The Dragons of Eden": "The defect that hinders communication betwixt them
by detcader 13y ago
Good piece; this whole thing, though, reminds me of something I read in Carl Sagan's "The Dragons of Eden":
"The defect that hinders communication betwixt them and us, why may it not be on our part as well as theirs?" - French philosopher Montaigne
Now Montaigne was talking about non-human animals, but it works the same for people: is it the fault of the person with the accent that you can't understand them, or your own? Why must that person work to get up to "your level," when it's as much their fault that they have an accent as it is your fault that you have trouble understanding their English?
- dclowd9901 13y agoNot to go all Team America, but Silicon Valley is in the United States. If it was in China, I'm willing to bet the language adaptation direction would be far different.
- jlgreco 13y agoYou should not confuse prescription and description. When people say things like "In order to conduct business in the US, an accent that other people can understand is important", they are describing how the world is, not how the world should be. You can say those other people should improve their communication skills, but that is just how you think the situation should be improved. The situation, in actuality, is one in which strong accents can add friction to the communications between a CEO and the people they need to talk to in SV.