Monday, June 2, 2014

Professional Languages

that mug is from Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977!

Now that I'm back in the theatre world, employed at an organization that feels very much like the one at which I worked in London, I've found myself slipping back into some of the professional mannerisms that I picked up across the pond.  The most notable are in my writing; I have to remind myself regularly that "organisation" is spelled with a "z" in the United States and that it's okay to say "upcoming season" rather than "forthcoming season," which was always corrected by one of my old bosses.  Another fundraiser I worked with in England would often write "hugely grateful" when thanking donors, which I wouldn't dare use in Washington, though I have spread "I do hope" and "please do let me know" to one of my current colleagues in DC already.  My job description is more or less the same now as it was in London but the language isn't always!

(I really hate it when Americans claim to have picked up British accents after living in England - especially since there is no such thing as a British accent - but much of what I write for my job is applicable only in a professional context and so I have very little personal, and therefore entirely American, history of using those words and phrases.)

Some words do have direct equivalents on either side of the pond; for instance, we all know that a resumé in the US is a CV in the UK.  However, there are also some words that aren't as simple to translate because we don't really have the same concepts here in the States.  Here are few professional terms that I learned after filling out my HMRC forms that aren't really used on this side of the pond:

Biro - a ballpoint pen

Tippex - White Out

Sellotape - Scotch tape

figures - financials
ex: The end of the fiscal year is coming up, so let's go over the figures to make sure we're in the black.

remit - a task or area of activity officially assigned to an individual or organization.
ex: I asked the marketing team to help with me our new membership brochure even though that's not in their remit since it's fundraising literature.

scheme - a plan, program, or strategy; not used negatively in the UK
ex: Interest in the theatre's membership scheme has increased since we introduced more benefits for the various levels.

redundant - being laid off due to the employer terminating the role/position for which the employee was employed
ex: When his company needed to cut the budget, the executives got rid of an entire department and made a dozen people redundant.

gardening leave - a situation whereby an employee, after resigning, is required by the employer to remain away from work to serve out a period of notice at home
ex: She was lured away from her job to a higher paying one at another company, and her boss put her on gardening leave when she gave her notice so she'd be rusty when starting her new role.

I can't think of any more specific examples of words without revealing details about my job and my employers, past or present, so I'll stop there, but what others have you come across, dear readers?  I know there are more!  (Actually, the one thing I will add is that my professional exuberance is more at home in America than in England - a very posh executive in London once advised me that I should take out 75% of the exclamation points in my communications with donors before sending him the drafts for approval!)

 photo 866de425-8336-4c63-9efd-1c4dd8bf0e62_zpsafe0d56b.jpg

35 comments:

  1. Canadians sort of straddle between the 2 'languages' (if we can call it that.) We use the 's' in organisation and we add a 'u' to colour. I've heard 'gardening leave,' 'redundant' and 'scheme' used in Canada and therefore know how and when to use them. I find Canadians (and perhaps Americans) use a lot of brand names for items that perhaps don't necessarily translate across the pond - Kleenex, Band-Aids, Saran Wrap, etc - and I wouldn't be surprised with examples the other way around.

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  2. well, Henry Higgins could definitely call them two languages! I used "scheme" in a fundraising letter here in the States and my colleague told me it made her think of Disney villains. but YES to the brand names - as naive as this is, I just hadn't considered that!

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  3. I've heard redundant used in the US but none of the others! Also re: CV and resume, I know the term is different, but I also thought that they were not interchangeable--generally the CVs I've seen (in the US) are longer than resumes (3-4 pages vs. 1-2) and include a great deal more information. Is that just the American version, or are the contents different from a resume in England too?

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  4. you know, I hadn't before considered that they were two different documents. they are definitely formatted differently and include more information, but I sort of assumed that if a British company asked me for a resume they really meant they wanted a CV and were just trying to use "my" word!

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  5. The US is really missing out on gardening leave, that is all I will say :)

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  6. Interesting. The gardening leave is different to me. So would this be like if you handed in your two weeks notice, the company would make you do it at home? Are you paid on gardening leave? It's a total mystery to me!

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  7. I think a CV is different at least in the US. It's used a lot in academia and includes all the publications and things. So I have a resume with my basic work/education info and my husband who is a professor uses a CV. He used to have a basic resume. However I don't know how it's used in the UK though!

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  8. I feel you on finding it hard to avoid mixing the two languages when talking about terms you only use in a professional context. Given my field, I now have no idea when to use "defense" and when to use "defence". And honestly, "defense" looks bizarre to me now.

    Oh, talking about diaries rather than schedules is another one.

    Do people in America talk about "fixing a time" or "fixing a date", i.e. for a meeting? I'd never heard that before coming here - I would always say "Let's pick/set a date."

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  9. Curious why you say there is no such thing as a British accent?

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  10. I don't remember "fixing" a date, but OH diaries. I still sort of have trouble with that. It makes me sound silly here :P

    Also, "tabling" a conversation means opposite things on either side of the pond!

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  11. I love discussing RP and it's evolution over the years! (Most drama schools in England hit RP reasonably heavily and you have to get marked in it...yikes...) But even when you listen to recordings from the Queen when she's young to now, you can even hear the evolution of her own RP. Or the fact that Kate Middleton's RP is much more classic than Williams. (Perhaps because it's more natural to him so he's more relaxed at it.) I wish I could send you some of my old RP textbooks- I bet you'd get a kick out of them!


    In my opinion, I think someone's accent can definitely change naturally, especially if their own accent isn't particularly strong in the first place. With RP sounds creeping in to my General American and Sam's strange RP-Yorkshire amalgamation it's definitely a linguist's dream household. x

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  12. okay, you have shamed me: you're right, accents do evolve and we do assimilate linguistically and I shouldn't have said I hate it when Americans say they sound British (which I still think isn't a thing) as evidence of how much they love England and how well they fit in. at a certain point we all say "bin" instead of "trash can" because it cuts down on translations, but it does get my goat when expats TRY to sound "native" especially somewhere like London, which is incredibly diverse! that's not you, obviously, but I'm sure you've heard it before from others :P

    an ex of mine grew up in Yorkshire and went to boarding school in the SE and said he remembers making the conscious decision to lose his northern accent at age 13... crazy!

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  13. Learning the BrE use of "redundant" is how I learned its proper definition of "no longer needed; superfluous" as opposed to what I'd always understood its meaning to be: unnecessary due to duplication.


    And the faked accents drives me crazy as well- it's one thing to have natural changes in particular inflections or to pronounce a word not previously used in the new manner, but an entire accent, especially one that's more Hollywood-mottled across English accents and not even a particular local region? Nope. You're a Fake McFakerson. (Says the person who still says "an-tee-biotic" instead of "an-tie-biotic"… ha!)

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  14. YES YES YES YES YES YES to the "no such thing as a 'British' accent". An accent can be generalized to "English" or "Scottish" or "Welsh", but not "British". The way I see it is you can have a "New York" accent, but then someone more aware of the boroughs would know a Queens from Brooklyn, etc. Or someone from the Midwest could distinguish Wisconsin from North Dakota, or a Southerner could tell Tennessee heritage from Mississippi. Anyway. I agree.

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  15. wait, which is normal in which country? I've always said an-tee-biotic. but I say it with the emphasis on AN and I think Jon says it with the emphasis on TEE...

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  16. Paul teases me that I should use "an-tie-biotic", and my mom says that as well. (I just asked her.)

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  17. I feel silly talking about my "diary" (KEEP OUT NO BOYS ALLOWED!) so I just stick to schedule (with a K!).

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  18. I once met an old farmer (like, actually; I'm not stereotyping) while on a run through a field in Suffolk and I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND A WORD HE SAID TO ME. it was so different from how Jon and his family and friends speak, even the Suffolk natives!

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  19. ah! you learn something new every day :)

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  20. I totally believe that! Our area of Yorkshire had a fair amount of "gentleman farmers" (landowners), but there were also plenty of authentic, sheep-shearing, field-plowing, beat-up-old-Defender-driving (always with 1-2 border collies in the back) farmers around! I loved running into them on my walks with the dogs, since they had some of the best stories.

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  21. My professional language completely changed after living in the UK (and taking Hugo along with me after we moved). I'm much more polite than I used to be, almost old fashioned in the way I write. I now say "holiday" instead of "vacation" - ie, I'm taking two weeks holiday. I also use "Please do...Please could you..." etc as well, which is something is very British. I also say "I'd be very grateful/ever so grateful..." all the time now, where as Americans tend to say "I would really appreciate" which sounds so harsh. I say "quite" and "rather", "it's quite warm outside"..."It's rather odd..." in lieu of "really" and "very". Brilliant is a fun adjective I've picked up. When I came home from the UK, my mother says my intonation was different, and there were some words that maybe sounded like they had a twinge of an accent, but I'm very cognizant not to be "that" American expat.

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  22. The only thing I do is say loo, and that's from au pairing a French-Irish family who spoke British English. It was so hard to force myself to say loo instead of bathroom that it's just stuck. And yes, it was necessary, because if I left the kids for 30 seconds to use the loo, the second my pants were around my ankles, they would start yelling for me. I HATE talking from the toilet. But if I said, "I'm using the bathroom, I'll be right back," the youngest always asked me why I was taking a shower. So to avoid all of this, I started saying loo, and it was a genuinely difficult effort to change my lexicon that way.

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  23. Yup, I have both a master CV and a master resume on file. Depending on the position, I tailor one or the other to the job description.

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  24. Interesting! I'm going to start calling it selotape. Well, I probably won't actually because I won't remember, but that's funny. But I'm curious: what do you mean when you say there is no such thing as a British accent? Is there such a thing as a Southern accent or an Australian accent, or do you just not think there's such a thing as accents?

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  25. Never mind. I read the other comments, and someone already asked that. I'm good!

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  26. People in Oklahoma say "fixin'." i.e., my in-laws and my husband. My MIL is always "fixin' to go to the store."

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  27. haha there you go :) for what it's worth, Jon's "American" accent is HORRIBLE because he sort of combines a California lilt with a southern drawl and then also some New York vowels. it KILLS me!

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  28. Hahaha. I love that about the exclamation points. A coworker of mine uses Google Docs with me and she always reminds me to take out all my exclamation points. But! It's all so exciting!!!

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  29. oh YES the "please do" is all over my professional correspondence! "Please do not hesitate to contact me if..."

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  30. As someone who has never lived abroad, this is all very interesting to me! Even the comments had a lot to offer. I find it so interesting how different words are used for the same idea, and how adding a 'u' or swapping an 's' for a 'z' makes it recognizably another language. I love the idea of using 'please do' in business correspondence, though- I'm going to have to borrow that- and I also tend to try and go back and remove exclamation points if I'm trying to sound more professional.

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  31. this is so interesting! I love learning about nuances and differences like this!! :)

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