English as she is spoke

I thought I was being terribly clever when I used that headline many years ago in an article to promote business English courses at a corporate university. I thought our Dutch readers were humourless or ignorant when they denounced our howling error. I've changed my tune a little since then. I try to respect our global audience by avoiding expressions that are too tribal or too idiomatic. I do damage control on the CEO's statement instead of editing his broken English into pitch-perfect prose. Most of the time, I think I find a good balance between local colour and readability. But is it authentic English?

BBC Online's recent series of rants about Americanisms, reported this week by The Economist, suggests that plenty of people have a tribal attachment to their own particular flavour of English. The suddenly popular www.samosapedia.com is a light-hearted clarion call to 1.5 billion South Asian users of the language formerly known as English. And Microsoft offers me no fewer than 18 standard variants to choose from – concerned, no doubt, that South African English would alienate my Zimbabwean readership.

Lingua franca

Authenticity is a thorny issue in our line of business. And if broken English is the lingua franca of the global economy, what is the added value of a business writer whose native language is British?

As a consumer, a basic command of the language is probably all you need to stay informed, place an order and use the customer support forum. But as a producer, settling for unwieldy English in your marketing and corporate communications more than likely erodes the credibility of your brand, and it's a missed opportunity to differentiate yourself.

Even if your readers are non-natives, chances are they're educated enough to recognise standard English when they see it. They'll probably understand your message better if it's crafted by a communicator with a full mastery of the tools of the trade. And when they compare your home-grown efforts with your native-English competitors, I bet their perception of your company – your eye for detail, your project management skills, your quality control – will be downgraded a notch.