Page 92 - How to write effective business English your guide to excellent professional communication by Fiona Talbot

Writing globally? Or in multinational teams? 81

They have done very well and I’m telling them that. The moment
I say that I’m ‘quite proud’, the perception can be that I’m diluting
my pride: I am less proud than I could be. The nuance then implies
that the person could have done better. That would make a mate-
rial difference in a written performance review, for example.
But I once heard an American boss tell a member of staff that he
was ‘quite proud’ of his achievements. I could hear his intonation
in the spoken words. This distinctly told me that he was using
‘quite proud’ to mean ‘very proud’. But we can’t hear intonation in
writing (except when we SHOUT through capital letters or through
emoticons, which signify emotions). So nuances that mean differ-
ent things to different people, might not make commercial sense
when you think about it.

Standard and online dictionaries, and the lure
of cut and paste!

Always check the meanings and spellings of words when unsure.
And, whatever you do, don’t feel you have to use the most compli-
cated word your dictionary offers!
Let’s say you’re a non-NE writer using an online dictionary and
you type a word in your own language for ‘outcome’. You see a
selection of English translation words. I tried this in German once
and the online dictionary offered, amongst other words, corollary
and consecution. Corollary is a word that people may know but
it’s only used in a very specific context. Consecution, though?
That’s very technical and rarely used in everyday business writing.
None of us should feel we must choose the most complicated
‘intelligent-sounding’ choice – which is often the longest – when
we face a bewildering selection of words to choose from. Think
before you ditch ‘outcome’, which almost everyone will under-
stand, for ‘consecution’!
Look for the word that people really use. Don’t be disappointed if
this is more prosaic than the language of Shakespeare. You write in-
telligently in English for business when your readers understand you.