Fwd: American English

["iFaqeer (SIA)" <techdervish -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Actually, my own experience is that Americans are often the least
aware/conscious/sensitive to either the existence or specifics of
"American English". Except, of course, for specialists that pay
attention to it--and when they specialize, Americans are often the
best at a given task.

But then, that might be true of any group of folks trying to recognize
what they see as "just plain <insert language name here>" as being a
"dialect". And in this kind of case, it might be a double dose of
that--the hirer and hiree in India not recognizing that they language
they use is an Indian dialect of the language and the person
contracting/assigning the Indian group not analyzing who they are
dealing with and/or making clear the expectation that the job will
require "American Idiom".

On the flip side, in my very humble opinion, hiring decisions that are
a bad fit are as much--IMHO MORE--the fault of management than the
person applying for the job. And it is us tech writers that bear the
brunt of it.

My tuppence...er...two cents, worth. In terms of credentials--why I
bother to wade into this one--I was an "Offshore" tech writer before
most folks here might have been aware of the term (mid-90s--before
even the dotCom book) and I lost my first job in the US to an Indian
team way while most folks in the business Stateside were enjoying
dotCom perks, too.

iF/SIA

On 12/20/06, Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com> wrote: