Perceptions of Precision

Here is a cute and elegant take on punctuation in the English language, with in particular, emphasis on the use of the comma:

"Optimists see the apostrophe as comma in transcendence; pessimists see the comma as apostrophe condemned to earthly life.

"Her comma is a brief moment of peace, a time to recollect thoughts scrambled by loud words and louder silence, an unspoken armistice.

"My comma is an obstacle, a rage-inducing eternal pause, undoubtedly illogical -- why, every sentence must end in a period, an exclamation, a question! I want to get my point across, clean up the mess, and settle the matter. My comma is my foe."

Depspite being perhaps a little over-laboured, the analogy illustrates quite well how the very same punctuation methods in speech can irritate one and placate another equally.

When I finshed one course on my MBA here at the BI in Oslo, I received the following feedback over my class participation; "As for the relation to the rest of the class - be mindful that British English speakers, often unintentionally, can irritate others not with their precision of languge, but their belief that everyone else has as discerning a sense of it as theirs. I have a number of Brit friends who can drive their German and US colleagues up the wall with finely tuned sentences ."

I have also foud it to be the case that sometimes what I say to my Norwegian colleagues is not believed to be made in all earnesty, simply because of the way I am saying it. It raises an interesting question: surely this is one discipline that should be mandatory for Business Schools to teach: how to communicate with different cultures, accross international parameters? It can, after all, mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to dealmaking.