OT: Off shore call center workers mad at American

[Karibu]

I think everybody should learn Finnish instead of English, Spanish or Esperanto. We have no genders on our language. We just have 14 ways to bend every word (vs. German 4). Also we don't have those confusing prepositions or words like (in, out, at, etc.) but we just attach a nice postposition after the word (those 14 I meantioned). You only have to remember that those 14 ways to bend the words are not always same with every word, but they differ somewhat unpredictably.

And best part is, that we are a nation of 5 million people with no enemies (well, Swedish but who cares about them ) or geopolitical agenda.

Now, go and write to your Senator, hush!

[Iron Giant]

I've had my share of India calls, mostly to Veritas. I've mostly had good experiences with them, though I love to use vernacular (sp?) expressions with them.

After being on the phone with one guy for an hour fixing a huge issue, I told him I had to "go see a man about a horse". LOL. "you have to go and see a horse?" hehehe.

There was this one Indian woman with a beautiful speaking voice and a very sweet Indian name too and I showed her my website while she had taken remote control of the Server I was on and we were waiting for some download to complete.

I actually feel really bad when I hear that someone has changed their name so its more "american". Does everyone need to be named Bob to do business? Sheesh, some chinese friends of ours introduce themselves as Peggy or Betty. I think Pai'yan (sp) sounds so nice and can't hold a candle to Peggy. Makes me ashamed to be an American to think some people would change their very name to be more "like us".

otoh, if you move from country A to country B, its pretty arrogant to refuse to learn country B's language. That applies to Americans moving abroad and anyone moving to the USA too, jm .02

[Suicide Junkie]

When I worked with a call center I noted a few things:
- Many people start out upset.
- When you speak good english, and spend the first 30 seconds calming them down with simple things, it helps a lot.
- When they realize you're NOT reading a script like a computer, and are actual nerds with a clue, it also helps a lot.
Note: Asking them to describe the symptoms in detail, and then just listening is a great way to let them vent AND refine your questions later.
- Explaining what you are doing while you do it also helps. *Light* technobabble, which you tweak on the fly to their level. You don't want it to feel like they are being put on hold again.

[TurinTurambar]

Suicide Junkie said:
- Many people start out upset.
- When you speak good english, and spend the first 30 seconds calming them down with simple things, it helps a lot.
- When they realize you're NOT reading a script like a computer, and are actual nerds with a clue, it also helps a lot.

's what I'm sayin' man.

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[dmm]

Regarding a logical universal language:
It won't work. People are too insular, inventive, xenophobic, and obstreperous.
English is a good case in point. Some claim that it has become a lingua franca, but it is not quite correct to say that people in Nigeria or India or China can speak English. What they speak is Nigerian-English or Indian-English or Chinese-English. They can speak it very effectively with one another, which is very helpful in uniting their large countries with many minorities and dialects. But they need extra training to converse readily in English with outsiders. This should not surprise us. Ever try to speak (in English) with someone with a thick Cockney accent, or Southern Appalachian (U.S.) accent? Especially over the phone?
My point is that a lingua franca quickly mutates (degenerates?) into dialects and from there into separate languages. It is almost impossible to stop this process. It can be slowed by imposing a standard on everyone through the educational system, but eventually the standard becomes so far removed from daily life that only the elite use it. Latin and written Chinese are the most obvious examples from history. But even the elite can't stop the morphing, so that eventually the standard becomes rather arbitrary. A good example is English spelling, which used to be quite logical back when it was standardized, but since then the pronunciations have changed (mostly simplified). The standardization allows us to read the Declaration of Independence and Shakespeare and even older stuff, but makes good spelling into a feat worthy of contests.
Some questions to ponder: How would one re-standardize English spelling? Whose pronunciation should be used? Who would enforce it? Who would translate all of the old writing into the new spelling? Would this cause English dialects to diverge even faster?
One last point about English: It has been criticized for having so many ways to say almost the same thing (i.e., loose grammar and huge vocabulary). That is not needless complexity; it is richness. Don't fret. The richness would disappear from "lingua franca English" just as it did with Classical Greek (compared to koine Greek, the "lingua franca Greek"). If English actually does triumph and become the lingua franca of the 21st century, ironically most of our 22nd century descendants won't be able to understand most of 20th century English. Of course embedded computers will automatically translate for them, but the nuances will be lost except to scholars.