Say it Like it Is!

It's been a tough time for fliers - frequent or occasional.

The ash cloud, combined with complications prompted by the BA strike creates a dilemma for travel planners. Do you chance a flight?  Or be damned to it and take some other form of transport!

You can't argue with nature - that always takes its course.  But you can query why a group of people can't cobble together an agreement, especially when leaders on each side of the dispute claim their arguments are perfectly reasonable.

It's often a question of communication. And Focus for Change www.focus4change.co.uk (click on workshops) know a thing or two about communication, working with organisations anxious to adopt smarter working practices.  The NHS, emergency services, companies and professional practices benefit from our one-day seminars, part of a wide range of interactive workshops led by the company's expert presenters. 

To convey clearly meaning and opinion is a gift too precious to be left to politicians of whatever stripe or level.  And it's crucial at the present time of  job insecurity.

Think how many times you switch off a TV film or a play because the actors mumble unintelligibly?

The latest translation of the Bible into pidgin is for people with Jamaican background. Hopefully the cost was met by a charitable organisation and not by taxpayers. West Indian friends have no problem understanding the traditional form, though they'll no doubt enjoy a rapped-up version of the Good Book.

But what's the point? In the British Isles we're lucky the Queen's English - OK, so it has a US twist - is recognised throughout the world as the language of commerce and communication.

Yet scarce resources are devoted to maintaining interest in national tongues spoken by a relative few, for instance Welsh. The cost, out of the hard-hit education budget in the principality's schools could be properly included among the cuts the new Chancellor and his team are being forced to consider between the nice-to and the need-to.

People fearful of losing such an important part of their heritage can preserve it as a leisure activity. Taking it from a crowded curriculum would surely better serve the ambitions of pupils looking for a career beyond the valleys where, in the cause of political correctness, the two languages unnecessarily go side by side in public places.

Good communication is an essential tool in business where relationships are crucial to success. In the office, the shop-floor, hospital ward and among the many levels of public service the ability of individuals to clearly understand each other is the first principle of professionalism.

Ambiguity is the enemy of good practice.