Ask The Language Lady | By Language Directions

How Important is Punctuation?

2011-11-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

Who cares about punctuation, anyway? Is it really relevant? You decide. Read the two letters below. The words are the same. See what a difference punctuation makes?

The Importance of Correct Punctuation

From Games Magazine, 1984

We examine two "Dear John" letters ...

Version 1:

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous,

kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless

and inferior.

You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no

feelings whatsoever when we're apart. I can be forever happy--will

you let me be yours?

Gloria

Version 2:

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous,

kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being

useless and inferior.

You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no

feelings whatsoever. When we're apart, I can be forever happy. Will

you let me be?

Yours,

Gloria

SpellCheck...or not?

2011-10-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

SpellCheck is a wonderful thing. It picks up a lot of errors; spacing, incorrect letters, non-existing words. What is DOESN’T pick up are real words used incorrectly. Consider the sentence ‘’He blue out the candles.’’ SpellCheck would sail right over this without detecting that the sentence should contain the word ‘’blew.’’ Similarly, ‘’I’m going two the store’’ would also not get flagged by SpellCheck as incorrect. Sew don’t get lulled into a false sense of security (J). Proof your work closely AFTER you’ve run SpellCheck as a first edit.

Trendy Expressions May Not Be "Cool"

2011-10-07T10:30:00.000-07:00

People use slang or jargon to those they don’t know really well and don’t realize that everyone is not up on the latest hip way of speaking. A business contact of mine, when taking responsibility for a mistake, used the term ‘’my bad.’’ The Languagelady is a grammar nut, so my first reaction was to think ‘’my bad what?” I wondered if the person hadn’t finished her sentence? What wasn’t I understanding? So, before you use some trendy, hot expression to show that you are cool and up-to-date, consider your audience and the reaction that it might have. Instead of cool, you might convey quite the opposite impression. And of course, you never get a second chance to make a first impression!

The Importance of Names

2011-09-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

Today is my daughter-in-law Stephanie’s birthday. Yesterday, I had lunch with my old friend Stefanie. Stephanie prefers to be called Steph and Stefanie likes to be referred to as Steffi. What’s my point? Not taking the time to spell people’s names correctly or use a nickname for them that they do not choose for themselves can indicate either that you do not care enough to take the time to know, or that your powers of observation are so limited that you did not notice, or even that you put everyone with that name into the same mold. None of these is a good option for you, either in business or in your personal life. A person’s name is her most valuable possession. Treasure it as she does and use and spell it correctly. This is a topic that personally resonates with me. I’m Sharlene, not Charlene or Charleen or Sharleen. Look at the signature on an e-mail before writing the greeting on your reply. You’d best believe I am very aware of who spells my name correctly. It may not make a difference in our relationship, but it is very much noticed. How do you feel when people you’ve known for decades continue to send cards and invitations with your name spelled wrong?

Better Communication Can Begin with Native-born Speakers – Part 7

2011-09-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Big Three Sensible Strategies for Improving Verbal Communication

We’ve been talking about the creative use of words to minimize non-comprehension. Here are three big ones to keep in mind about voice volume and intonation.

1. When you speak to someone for whom English is a second language, speak slowly and always pause slightly before, during, and after saying a proper noun such as your name, the name of a company, a state, or a country. Also pause between numbers. (My cell number is 862 — 778 — 1234).

2. Use more intonation (expression) for emphasis so the listener will hear a specific word stand out from the others. (The picnic is Saturday, rain or shine)

3. Let the listener hear the ends of your words, as well as the beginnings — carry that voice energy all the way through the word. Try to avoid fast sentences with contractions. Complete the word production!

If you keep these simple techniques in mind when you speak to someone you anticipate might have difficulty understanding you, you will find that everyone’s level of frustration becomes lower. You can use the same techniques for speaking with the elderly.

Better Communication Can Begin with Native-born Speakers – Part 6

2011-09-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

Lucky 7 for better understanding

When my foreign-born listener has trouble understanding me, I use some techniques I’ve learned through practical experience. I’d like to share them with you in the event they can help you.

1. When they indicate they don’t understand something you’ve said, say the exact same words, only speak more slowly (Tip: repeat the entire sentence, not just the last word or two. It could have been a key word in the middle of your sentence that the listener didn’t hear.)

2. If your listener indicates that a specific word has been missed, spell it — slowly.

3. Use a synonym.

4. Rephrase, or summarize what you said, only in different words. Above all, do not raise the volume of your voice. Volume is not the problem; comprehension is. In many foreign cultures, loudness=rudeness.

5. Make an association to give the listener a “bridge” to understanding. This is especially helpful when giving directions or instructions: “Joralemon Street. You know where that big yellow house is on the corner. Joralemon Street.” Many of our place and street names are very difficult for non-natives.

6. Mentally scan your sentence to see if you have used one of the thousands of American idiomatic expressions that might be causing the problem. Rephrase and use straightforward language where the words may be interpreted literally without altering their meaning.

7. If a listener has misunderstood a specific word (“Did you say ‘counting’?”), use more voicing and more stress when repeating the misunderstood word; then repeat the entire utterance: “No I said ‘county”. “Edison is located in Middlesex — county.”

Better Communication Can Begin with Native-born Speakers – Part 5

2011-08-31T08:53:00.000-07:00

Ah, the perils of depending on Spell Check! What a great tool…it does so much. But what it doesn’t do is catch words that are real words, spelled correctly, but used inappropriately. Check out the poem below to see what I mean. Read it aloud to yourself and you’ll see what I mean!

SPELL CHECKER BLUE IT!

I HAVE A SPELLING CHECKER,

IT CAME WITH MY PC;

IT PLAINLY MARKS FOUR MY REVUE

MISTAKES I CANNOT SEA.

I'VE RUN THIS POEM THREW IT,

I'M SURE YOUR PLEASE TO NO,

ITS LETTER PERFECT IN IT'S WEIGH.

MY CHECKER TOLLED ME SEW.

- CHARLYNN MAXWELL PORTER

GATLINBURG, TENN.

Better Communication Can Begin with Native-born Speakers – Part 4

2011-08-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

I’d like to share the following excerpt from an article I found fascinating:

A Failure to Communicate

By PAMELA PAUL

Published: August 27, 2010

THE GIST Many Americans are wary of people who speak with foreign accents.

THE SOURCE “Why Don’t We Believe Non-Native Speakers? The Influence of Accent On Credibility,” The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

ZERE ees a reason ze villain alvays speaks like zees. But it may not be the reason you think. A new study says distrust of those who speak with a foreign accent goes beyond common xenophobia. Apparently, when we don’t understand what someone’s saying, we lose confidence in the speaker altogether.

According to recent research, words and pictures that we can process easily — ones that we don’t have to work to decipher — tend to be perceived as not only more pleasant, clearer and less risky, but also more truthful.

Better Communication Can Begin with Native-born speakers – Part 3

2011-08-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

In my last blog, I used the term SLOW DOWN. As I wrote that, I couldn’t help but think how odd that we say SLOW DOWN, but SPEED UP. Why do we ask people if they’d like to COME OVER…..over what? Are we flying? Why do we LOOK SOMETHING UP but WRITE SOMETHING DOWN? But then, you get WRITTEN UP when something is put into your personnel file.

What’s the point of this? Be aware that when you speak to someone who did not grow up here, these inconsistencies can cause confusion. We need to understand that English is a difficult and sometimes crazy language and be tolerant when our usage of some expressions can cause communication problems.

Better Communication Can Begin with Native-born speakers – Part 2

2011-08-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

The other day I was speaking on the phone with one of our ServSafe instructors, a native speaker of Mandarin. For the first time since I’ve known her, I had difficulty grasping the details of the conversation and found myself asking for a repetition. Knowing how unpleasant it is to have to repeat things, I spent some time after the call thinking about what I could have done to make the call go better. The first thing I realized is that all my prior communication with her had been in-person. I remembered how my grandmother used to say she couldn’t hear well without her glasses. Aha! When we can look at someone and see their facial and body expressions, we have many non-verbal clues as to the content of the message. Take these away and communication is diminished substantially. Add to that the static generated by any electronic communication and the result can be dismal, not to mention inaccurate!

What can we do? The most significant thing a native English speaker (especially those of us from the NY metro area) is to SLOW DOWN. Removing the ‘’video’’ makes us depend more on the ‘’audio.’’ Be aware that your listener must ‘’decode’’ what you say and needs to hear each individual word with enough space between them to process the information. If listeners get ‘’stopped’’ by not understanding one phrase, they may not be able to catch up and may miss the content of the remainder of the sentence. Speak twice as slowly as you normally speak when speaking to a foreign-born individual on the phone. You may think you are speaking painfully slowly, but your listener will be very grateful.

Better Communication Can Begin With The Native Born Speaker

2011-08-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

The many years I have been working with foreign born speakers of American English have led me to reflect that we work so much to help them to communicate with native born speakers yet work so little on helping these native born speakers to be better understood by their foreign born audience. I'd like to devote the next few blog entries to doing this, as I truly believe that better communication must be attempted from both sides to be effective. These tips are aimed at the American born side of the equation. Put your own daily chatter under the microscope and by increasing awareness, you might just increase the level of understanding when you speak to someone who did not grow up speaking American English.

American sports analogies: have you ever noticed how often we use them in our daily speech? "He hit a home run with that proposal (baseball)." "She did an end run to go around her supervisor (football). " "That was a slam-dunk (basketball). You'll realize how many times we do this when you monitor your own dialog.....and when you see the blank expression of your foreign born listener.

Nonsense expressions that have no significance if you didn't grow up here:

Think about how many times we use expressions like "willy-nilly, hanky-panky, and wishy-washy" and how puzzling they might be to others. Simple efforts to avoid using these expressions can go a long way towards understanding. Instead, you can use real words to describe the same thing...say "erratic, bad behavior, and vague" to better convey your meaning.

Jargon: We all tend to use the jargon and terminology specific to our line of work. It's helpful to be aware that outside of that industry, use of these words and expressions can be puzzling to an "outsider." As a training provider, I often hear expressions in the Human Resources environment that I didn't understand at first. Was "on boarding" something like "water-boarding?" What is a "matrix?" You get the idea. Being aware of jargon and either defining it or using more commonly understood words will help to make the listener not feel stupid. Remember that most people will not feel comfortable asking about an unfamiliar word or expression.

Simple attention to our own speech and phraseology goes a long way toward making a listener from another culture feel at ease in a business discussion.

Free Easy Way to Improve Your English

2011-06-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

While traveling in Europe, I couldn’t help noticing how many people are comfortable and fluent in American English. Upon further investigation, I learned that most have acquired English fluency by watching American sitcoms. To improve your fluency and comprehension of any language, look to your TV. For casual conversation, watching sitcoms is great, but if you want to polish your business and professional English, go to the news broadcasts. American broadcasters are ‘’the people from nowhere’’ with no recognizable accent of any kind. Their grammar, diction, and presentation skills are excellent models for those seeking to improve their fluency and comfort with American English. Watch for speech patterns, intonations, and body language as well as for vocabulary and grammar and you will quickly improve the quality of your spoken communication.

English is not always the same!

2011-04-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Ireland, I couldn't help but notice that the place where you put cars is pronounced GArage, with the accent on the first syllable. At home in the US, we pronounce the same word with the same meaning as gaRAGE. How simple the change and how the difference in pronunciation causes confusion! There are so many instances of how simply accenting a different syllable changes the listener's ability to easily follow the conversation. Someone from India might say DEVelopment when Americans will say deVELopment. English has dialects too.

Welcome!

2011-04-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I look forward to sharing communication tips and other information here. This is a place for "anything you want to know about American English or American Expressions." Check back soon and let the dialog begin!

The Language Lady