Communication skills?

Or indeed Ponsonby-Cholmondely-Smythe?

Primrose53

RosiesMaw2

And the relevance of your final sentence is…..?

I know what you are trying to suggest but I am not playing that game.

Au contraire - I think it was you who was making a point, otherwise why comment?
Would you found it equally noteworthy if they’d been called McTavish or O’Sullivan or Evans?

RosiesMaw2

And the relevance of your final sentence is…..?

I know what you are trying to suggest but I am not playing that game.

Primrose53

I had to ring our County Council recently who one might expect would employ professional and well spoken staff.

One lady ended our call with “no probs. Thanks hun.” I detest being called that by anyone let alone a council official.

The other lady could barely speak English and after asking her to repeat herself twice I was embarrassed for both of us. I asked her to email me instead. She did so and her written English was equally bad. She had an African name.

I was once on the 'phone to my bank about some mistake on their part and the young lady who was trying to help me was struggling on all fronts. In the end I asked to speak to the manager who had it sorted in a couple of minutes. Also, I was once in an office where a man started shouting down the 'phone: I want to speak to someone who understands me and what I want. He actually became quite irate. I've also had this language problem with people trying to take my booking for a restaurant table and not being able to understand the English alphabet or numbers to take a surname and telephone number. For me, it is actually the fault of the managers who put these staff on 'phone duties as they either need to train them or ensure their language skills are sufficient for the job. Shame on them!

I dislike it when someone important is being interviewed and the interviewer keeps interrupting them and won't let them finish a sentence and then it cuts back to the news or times up. You think: Well, what was that all about apart from lots of words getting all muddled up?

Oh yes - ‘so’. The misuse and overuse of that makes me want to scream.

Being a sportsman doesn't stop you benefitting from proper media training. Look at the way most professonal sportsmen, like tennis stars deal with interviews. Most of their interviews are pitch perfect. This is because they are thoroughly media trained.

Th Olympic organisers should be making sure that all their high flyers are similarly trained.

Journalism is entirely different from having media skills. You need media skills to deal with journalists and reporters.

My pet bugbear is when someone I barely know begins a sentence with "so". It often means they are about to ask a rude personal question to which my usual response is:-

"I dont mind you asking impertinent personal questions so long as you dont mind my not answering them".

Great conversation killer that one.

this reminds me of the great pork / fork debate on MN.
one group asserted that these two words did not rhyme, the other were equally sure that they did.
i had visions of commuters on trains all over the uk muttering pork, fork ? in puzzled tones.

Aveline

Pronounce it with a 'w' of course.

is that a joke, or am i missing something ?

"Well, obviously" drives me mad. If it's that obvious we don't need an explanation!

It’s the mispronunciations that get me. I would have curled up and died of embarrassment when I was young. Now they seem completely oblivious.

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I called the State Pension helpline last week. The guy who answered laughed at everything I asked/answered. Maybe he was nervous. However very offputting. Hopefully get the information requested within 30 working days! Not holding my breath to be honest.

When Rishi Sunak was asked questions he always started his answer with "Look" after the third or fourth time it got very annoying.

Pronounce it with a 'w' of course.

how can you pronounce law other than saying lor ???

I agree BUT they are competing in their particular sport, it's not a communication sport. Many well paid journalists drive me mad with their poor grammar. "different to " is common, the correct form is "different from". not pronouncing the word "law" properly - they end it the word with "r" to quite just two.

All politicians and people working in jobs that bring them in contact with the media are usually sent on media training before they start dealing with the media.

Why shoukd asportsmen and athletes be any different. The question is, knowing that key ath;etes will be wnate dand interviewed by the press. , isn't it the responsibility of those putting them up for interview to mke surethey are properly trained?

So

I would think that the Olympic athletes would be given a bit of a short course on media interviews. For many of them, it's not something that they've had to do before, and they could feel awkward. I know I would!

My DH watches a lot of sport, and sometimes I'm impressed with the eloquence of the athletes. How many ways are there to say ' we made mistakes and lost!'

I too hate it when anyone begins with ‘Look’
My mother , bless her, used to say ‘At what?’. Which quite wrong footed the speaker.

Actual recent photograph of me

Why do people now start a sentence with 'so' it's getting to be as irritating as 'like'.