In article , Gerald Miller wrote:
On Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:20:25 +0700, Bruce in Bangkok
wrote:
[...]
Thank God I didn;t give up my day job as every company I visited was
absolutely certain that their manuals were written in perfect English.
Of course, the individual making that decision was the guy that wrote
the manual as few Japanese, in those days, who worked in factories,
spoke fluent english.
[...]
For a while I worked under a Korean engineer, and since management, in
an effort to eliminate non billable hours, had decreed that each
project manager was responsible for typing all their own reports and
correspondence; he sometimes produced some real classics. On occasion,
he would have me review reports on jobs in which I was involved. One
time in particular, he took offence at my correction of his report
which he was quite certain followed all of the rules of the English
language. I guess the subject came up at dinner that night with his
university senior son because next morning he was very apologetic and
requested that whenever I had time, would I please review his reports.

It's hard for me to imagine the height of the arrogance required, to suppose
that one's skills in the use of a language not one's own are superior to those
of a native speaker of that same language. I speak and write German fairly
well, but if something I had written in that language were corrected by a
German or Austrian, I would *thank* him. It would never occur to me to
*argue*.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.