Sound Matters!

Are you approachable?  Are you open?  Did you know that your listener decides this about you in the first three minutes?  If you wish to convey openness in your communication, be an initiator of the conversation, listen intently, share, understand and comfort.  If you can get the listener to share with you early in the encounter, you will understand them better and then be able to determine your approach with that person.  If you have access to a video tape and can record yourself engaging in conversation with another person, you can get a lot of clues about your personal approach and style.

1. Has this ever happened to you?  You are listening to someone speak and all of a sudden spit flies out of their mouth accidently onto you.   If you know someone who spits while speaking and you have been a recipient, what can you do?  This is what I found out on the internet:

1. Realize that the amount of saliva they are producing is most likely out of their control.
2. Step back.  This is probably the most polite option.
3. Avoid watching their mouths when the other person speaks.  Making eye contact will help you forget about the spitting and increase the self-confidence of the speaker.
4. Use your best judgment about saying something.  It may be that the person doesn’t realize they are spitting. They may want to know.  You may also want to give subtle cues by wiping the place where it landed.

Do you have a tactful suggestion for handling this situation?   I’d like to know!

In 1872 John Ruskin wrote: “The essence of lying is deception, not in words; a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the accent of a syllable, by a glance of the eyes attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence; and by all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than a lie plainly worded.”

Have you seen the new show on television called Lie to Me? My son and I were watching it the other day with fascination.  The premise of the show is that our facial expressions and body movements are key to whether we are lying or not just as John Ruskin suggests.  Each story has a crime case and the experts are called in to watch the people involved to analyze their movements.   Then they determine who is lying.  It is fascinating  process and they show pictures of real people (politicians mostly) who have been caught lying and their expressions associated while telling the lie. 

I decided to see how well my son remembered what was just talked about on the show regarding subtle gestures we make when we lie. 

He asked me, “Do I really have to go to bed?”

“No,” I said fiddling with the back of my head just like the actor who had just lied did,  “you can stay up really late tonight even though it is a school night.” 

“Really?” he asked totally unaware of my lying gesture. 

“Yea right.”  I reverted back to my sarcastic vocal tone.

“I didn’t think so,” he said fully understanding my vocal tone this time.

Luckily, he picked up on at least the one cue in my voice.  Now that we watch the show together, he and I may just have to alter the way we talk to each other. 

If you’d like to check out the show:

LIE TO ME
8 p.m. Wednesday, Fox

Let me know what you think of it!

Americans use idioms and expressions on a daily basis in nearly every conversation.  It comes natural to us and we don’t even think twice about using them.  There are many categories of idioms from expressions using animals, food, and men and women among many more.  Just Google “Categories of Idioms” and you’ll find a lot to choose from.  One  of my favorite categories and perhaps spoken frequently in the workplace is sports idioms.  If you’re a native English speaker from the U.S., you probably understand most of these figures of speech even if you’re not a sports fan. But for most people from another country, these expressions can be very confusing. The listener may know nothing about the sport from which the idiom comes and may not be able to understand it in a business context.

Consider the following sentences:

• Do you think we can strike a deal with this company or is it out of our league.
• This is a no-win situation with Jerry. He’d like to call all the shots but I don’t think he’s playing with a full deck.
• Can you give me the game plan and run the numbers? I only need ballpark figures now but once we’re in the home stretch, I’ll need the precise numbers.
• Give me a blow by blow description of what occurred.  We just might be below par on this activity. 

We are less likely to say, “You have a reasonable possibility for success”  than  “You have a fighting chance.”  Or, people don’t  “do something seriously wrong,”  they “drop the ball.”  If English is a person’s second language, the meaning of these examples will be lost on them.  Even native English speakers may be unclear about the exact meanings of less frequently used expressions like “horses for courses” (suitable for one person but not another)  or “tale of the tape” (used when measuring things).

Are you sensitive to the idiomatic speech you use with people in the office?  Do you consider the possibility that your listener may not understand?  You could “keep them in the loop” by explaining their meaning when used, especially if you notice blank stares.

Do you need to brush up on your use of idiomatic speech? There is a wonderful book called How to Play the Game: American English Sports & Games Idioms by Jean Henry. Being familiar with these sports idioms and many others can increase your understanding significantly and help you take your English to a new level!  You can also look for them in newspapers especially in the business sections.  Look them up on the internet so you understand their meaning and then try them out!  Idioms are colorful and make English more interesting and exciting.  Using them also helps the non-native speaker sound more native (if this is the goal). 

Properly using and understanding idioms is a high level language skill achieved well after a person masters grammar and vocabulary. Understanding this can help you to communicate better with your international colleagues and friends.