My husband volunteers for an organization helping Spanish speakers navigate the English world, currently an EE from Colombia stuck in a gig job and highly motivated to improve his skills, who has a lot of interesting questions. One of the things they discussed today was why native English speakers might refer to this year as twenty twenty-one or two thousand twenty-one, but would never refer to the year nineteen ninety-one as one thousand nine hundred ninety-one.

This sort of thing reminds me that I will never become fluent in another language. First off, I can’t answer the question definitively, though I agree with premise. Secondly, I can’t imagine speaking poorly enough to make such a mistake. Or maybe not a mistake; I can think of ways I might extend the number-name of the year as a joke, or social commentary. None of them is particularly nice, but nice has never been my leading strength. Of course if I did do such a thing, listeners would have to be pretty fluent in English to get my drift.

So maybe that sort of thing is pointless, or even shows a little bit of hater vibe, saying things the people around you might not understand. Though perhaps not, because they could learn something? In any case, mightn’t you be disrespecting them by dumbing down your speech, assuming they might not understand?

I have often, especially during my time in high tech, had highly intelligent work colleagues who expressed themselves at an elementary level in English. I’ve imagined them navigating the dry cleaner or the UPS store, possibly being viewed as dumb by someone who hadn’t seen them in their native milieu.

Because of that, when someone can’t communicate well with me, I remind myself that there is someplace where they are culturally attuned and I am effectively gagged. I don’t want to be in that place, though. I want to know what is going on around me.

If you’ve traveled in a foreign country, you may have seen people, often Americans, getting overcharged or worse because they a) can’t speak the language, and b) think that English is easier to understand at higher volume. A guide can help, though the guide by definition filters the experience, even if trying very hard not to do so.

Communication missteps are possible when everyone speaks the same language, too. That may be the new common experience in America. I see a lot of people on TV who are saying things using words whose meanings have clearly been altered. Heck, that happens in my erstwhile workplace as well. For instance, the phrase There’s some truth in everything is a common aphorism there. What does truth mean in that sentence? Not what I thought it meant.

And yes, I am no longer employed, and probably will just dive into early retirement. When I get the processing done and the severance pay in hand, I’ll share more.