kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
Kate ([personal profile] kate_nepveu) wrote2009-08-12 07:43 am

WorldCon: Things I Did Wrong

(I was planning to write this as a section of my big roundup post pretty much from the start, to be titled "Ego Boosting and Deflating," but since I see an aspect of it is being discussed, I thought I should break it out separately so it would go up quicker.)

A number of people were kind enough to say to me that they liked things I said on panels or the way I moderated or things I write online. I am very grateful for and appreciative of those comments. However, since very few people (even at a con!) are going to come up to me and say that they thought I did a lousy job or said something stupid, I thought it important to publicly acknowledge the times I did something wrong at the con.

  • I suggested a group of people sit somewhere physically incapable of accommodating at least one of the members of the group. I apologized to the group at least but possibly not to the specific person; I apologize for being ableist and sizeist.
  • During a panel, I interrupted [livejournal.com profile] karnythia to explain something that she was going to get to in just a minute. (I apologized after.)
  • Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure I mispronounced [livejournal.com profile] karnythia's name at least once while on a panel. I apologize.

    (I read by word recognition not phonetics and keep wanting to swap the "n" and "y" in her name, "cah-RIN-thee-ah" instead of "car-NEE-thee-ah." However, she said it out loud, that's no excuse, I should have written it down.)

  • I told Kathryn Cramer something true but not complete and appeared two-faced as a result.

    When she approached me and said that she regretted that I had dropped off a panel with her called "X, Why? Minorities in a Large Field, or Majorities in Our Own?," I said that I had been scheduled for items at 9:00, 10:00 (that one), 11:00, and 12:30. I should also have added "and as you know, we have fundamental differences of viewpoint, so I didn't feel it appropriate to be on a panel with you." I apologize for the inaccuracy.

    (I was considerably surprised by her approaching me, especially since I had previously been told that she had stated that I had refused to be on a panel with her [*], and so socialization took over in the absence of preparation.)

    [*] Yes, her knowledge of this raises other issues; I'm asking you all to defer discussion of them for now.

  • I was a thoughtless Anglophone to hotel staff several times.

I have more complicated thoughts on my moderation of the "Writing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Geographic Terms" panel, but I think they need to wait.

Do feel free to add to this list. Anonymous commenting is on here as usual, but I will screen gratuitously nasty comments (and then repost under ROT13 so you all can judge for yourselves).

(As I've said before: please don't say "oh gosh those aren't that bad, you're too hard on yourself" or whatever. I'm not looking for consolation or cookies. Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd save anything nice you were planning to say for a more topical post. => )

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 12:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Why is it inappropriate to be on a panel with someone with whom you disagree? Is there something wrong with the airing of differences of viewpoint?

It may be a generational thing, but I feel that it can be useful to make differences and the reasons for them open, as well as the bases for possible agreement on some issues.

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
I hadn't at that time. My apologies.

[identity profile] publius1.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 01:26 pm (UTC)(link)
While that all sounds admirably high-minded, Katheryn Cramer, due to some truly noxious behavior about a half a year ago, does not deserve defending (http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/901816.html). It's not just disagreement.

Also, no, wanting to air differences is not the sole jurisdiction of the venerable.

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Not defending, merely asking. Not claiming venerability quite yet either.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 03:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"It may be a generational thing"? Wow, way to passively-aggressively suggest that [livejournal.com profile] kate_nepveu made this decision based on the bull-headed impetuousness of youth. Cue patronizing chuckle.

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
I said no such thing. You are reading a great deal into a simple phrase. All I meant to indicate was that there are difference in how people brought up in different generations, with different sets of experiences, treat interactions. I have a very different kind of negotiating style from people of my parents' generation (or for that matter from either of their cultures). That's all. Nor did I chuckle in any way, patronising, or otherwise. I'm more inclined to guffaw than to chuckle when I laugh, in any case.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
All I meant to indicate was that there are difference in how people brought up in different generations, with different sets of experiences, treat interactions.

Indeed. In previous generations, it was considered appropriate for people of color to STFU and accept racist behavior from whites. I'm not sure that's a recommendation.

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
It seems that you are determined, for some reason, to count coup on my head. If that makes you feel good, fine by me. But if you want to call me an Uncle Tom, I'll be happy to give you the address of my employer, the president of my HBCU, to whom you may deliver that accusation in person. I'm sure he'll be happy to get rid of my "accepting racist behavior" ass.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 02:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I really don't think it's appropriate to suggest that I contact your employer, but thanks. And nobody has called you "Uncle Tom" but you.

You characterized [livejournal.com profile] kate_nepveu's disinclination to be on a panel with someone who has been, to put it charitably, screechingly clueless on the topic of race as a puzzling newfangled refusal to engage with those with whom one merely disagrees.

This ignores the long history of minorities being told to 'be nice' and disagree with backbending respect (if at all) with those beating them over the head with racism.

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 11:14 am (UTC)(link)
A quite reasonable suggestion.


redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2009-08-12 04:51 pm (UTC)(link)
There are different kinds of disagreement, I think: my short "will not be on a panel with again" list is based on behavior, not just opinions. For example, it's not that $person1 holds opinions I find problematic, but that she tried bullying me into defending/justifying myself when I asked her not to point a camera flash directly at me. (I don't know her opinions on most things I would expect to be panel topics.) Someone else got on the list for bad behavior during a panel, including but not limited to making it clear that he didn't think anyone my age could possibly belong on the panel in question. (Thinking that would have just been his problem, and saying so to the people running programming would have been iffy: saying so during the panel we were both on was over the top.

[identity profile] pgdudda.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 01:23 pm (UTC)(link)
I wish you hadn't gotten sick. You were excellent on the panels I saw you at. I was hoping to get a chance to get to know you and [livejournal.com profile] karnythia better, but the one chance I had, I was not wanting to speak up and "horn in" on her/your social circle and space. I somewhat regret not taking the risk of asking, but am very glad both of you attended, and hope to have other chances to meet in the future.

(I also owe you an apology for mispronouncing your name after hearing it. I even transcribed in IPA to help me remember, and still failed. Sorry.)

[identity profile] jimbow8.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. This Con seems like it was quite an ordeal. Sorry you went through it.

I commend you for acknowledging these things you did wrong. They obviously meant enough to you to bother you quite a bit, which says good things about your character.

I just wanted to say that, while I can't say that I understand what happened at the con or topic or racism in general, I feel that I've learned a bit from reading several of your posts and links. Thank you for that.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 01:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm not sure being a "thoughtless Anglophone" to hotel staff really counts in Montreal. (I was going to say that Canada is officially bilingual, but I googled it and it turns out only to the be the case in New Brunswick, and Quebec is officially unilingually Francophone).

That said, it's still a reasonable expectation that client-facing hotel staff in any decent-sized hotel in Montreal will speak English.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 03:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, by that thinking it's also a reasonable expectation that many customer service oriented folks here in the Southwest speak Spanish, and that's very much not the case. I'm not sure we have a right to expect English from others when our country is so unwilling to accommodate those who don't speak same, even in border communities.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Because a lot of Americans are monolingual and jerks about it, it's unreasonable to expect that customer service people in a large Montreal hotel will be conversant in English?

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)
It's unreasonable for Americans to expect this, yes.

People from countries that show similar respect in turn have more right to expect this sort of thing, IMHO--but of course, they're less likely to expect it, too.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I also point out that it's no an officially-mandated position. There's no requirement for it.

It is, however, good business sense.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
No argument that it's wise to speak multiple languages, and to one's benefit.

I don't think we have a right to expect it, but I agree that it's good business sense from the side of those being monolingual.

It'd be good business sense for us here, too.

[identity profile] icecreamempress.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 09:27 pm (UTC)(link)
People from countries that show similar respect in turn have more right to expect this sort of thing, IMHO--but of course, they're less likely to expect it, too.

What countries "show similar respect" in having multilingual hotel staff, except for St. Martin/St. Maarten? I've never heard of a national policy about that anywhere else.

Also, I had an astonishing experience in St. Martin/St. Maarten translating for the only Swiss person I have ever met who did not speak either English or French at all--it wasn't clear to me if he spoke only German, or German and rudimentary Italian, but the hotel workers were completely crestfallen that their English, French, and Dutch was inadequate.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 09:40 pm (UTC)(link)
My understanding is that much of Europe uses English as a sort of tourist language, and I know many people travel same with the expectation they can find enough English to get by, and generally expect to find it in hotels and such.

For Europe I can only speak from personal experience about Switzerland and Iceland, both of which very much made the effort to have hotel staff that spoke English. (In Iceland, English and German are required in school, and it's just assumed everyone will learn them.)

Also in the small bits of Mexico I've been to, there's been English among hotel staff and other tourist establishments.

My understanding is that most countries have multilingual citizens, which sort of by definition means having multilingual hotel staff.

(Another exception may be Britain, though I haven't been there--but it was kind of astonishing how many of the crew members on British Airways spoke only English, something which caused some problems on at least one flight I was on. Maybe it's only English speakers who get smug about language ...)
Edited 2009-08-12 21:42 (UTC)

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 01:05 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe it's only English speakers who get smug about language

Oh, no. A Cantonese-speaking friend of mine rolls her eyes at a mutual Mandarin-speaking friend who sneers at her language as being 'not really Chinese' - she tells me this is prevalent among Mandarin speakers. I'm given to understand as well that there are parts of Belgium where people are snooty about speaking French to the point of pretending not to speak Flams. And apparently migrant workers in California who speak minority (in their native country) languages like Mixtec are looked down upon by Spanish-speaking workers.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
Fair enough. :-)

I do think we have the luxury of being able to find English almost anywhere these days, to some extent, at least in the west, though that may be true for different languages in other regions, too.

[identity profile] maradydd.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 10:43 am (UTC)(link)
parts of Belgium where people are snooty about speaking French to the point of pretending not to speak Flams

I live in Flanders and haven't spent much time in Wallonia, so I can't comment on that, but I have totally gotten the hairy eyeball from people here just for offering to switch to French when my Flemish proved inadequate for the situation.

The only time it's actually annoying is when it's a bureaucratic situation where some piece of business has to get transacted and we're failing in both Flemish and English. Last week the guy at the tax office looked at me like I'd just peed on his desk. I know I need to get better at Flemish, but I seriously just wanted to pay my taxes :(

[identity profile] corruptedjasper.livejournal.com 2009-08-15 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
There are much larger swathes of Belgium where people really don't speak Vlaams/Flemish/Flamand. And the Flemish aren't always that great about being able to speak French/Walloon either.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 04:13 pm (UTC)(link)
When I was living in Zurich, I can state categorically that every person who worked in a restaurant was conversant in German, French and English (and probably Italian). I can't speak for the hotels beyond the bar at the Widder Hotel (which has, BTW, an excellent whisky selection), having not stayed in any there.

I did have a bit of trouble getting a PAYG mobile phone in Sihlcity, though; my German isn't very good and neither was the counter staff's English. But I wouldn't have expected English there.

[identity profile] keristor.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 12:52 am (UTC)(link)
Of course, in Britain we only speak English[1] and have problems with Americans who only speak American (this is a joke, of course; in actuality we get so many American programmes on TV these days that most of us understand American with no problem; this wasn't however the case when I was growing up in the 60s when there were a number of problems with American terms and pronunciation not being understood).

But in general the English tend to be monoglots, almost as much as U.S. Americans, in spite of being so close to countries speaking other languages. Other European[2] countries tend to be better, with the Dutch in particular taking pride of place at speaking whatever language the tourists speak (and often better than the tourists speak their own language). Although away from tourist areas this is less common, I found parts of Germany where even English wasn't generally understood at all (and some parts where German wasn't spoken; Schwaebisch is effectively a different language).

[1] Apart from the Welsh, for many of whom English is a second language, and Scots and Geordies and Scousers who speak dialects which are not always mutually intelligible.

[2] Many Brits still don't accept Britain as being part of Europe. There was the famous British headline "Continent cut off" (by bad weather), and a lot of British people still refer to 'Europe' meaning the non-British part of Europe.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Is it unreasonable for Anglophone Canadians or Brits to expect that in a country that is officially English and French-speaking, the customer-service staff in a large Montreal hotel will be conversant in English? Really?

It's not about "mutual respect" or Americans being dumb monolinguals (which is partly a function of our geography rather than mere xenophobia - Europe is not as culturally cool as rumor would have you believe), it's about good business sense.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
Except that there are folks in Quebec who speak only French, and folks in other provinces who speak only English ... my understanding is that being an English-and-French speaking country does not, in fact, mean that everyone everywhere speaks both English and French. And I don't actually know the culture, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that in a French speaking province you'd find people without English.

Sure, it's good business sense--no arguments with the notion it'd be wise to speak English. But I do have trouble with the notion that we have any right to expect English in a French speaking province--we're the visitors there.

And I'm well aware of the role our oceans play in our monolingualism, and am less and less convinced that's any excuse, given the many different communities folks come from. And it's especially no excuse in border states--and there is an element of xenophobia there.

No illusions about Europe being cool in all ways--I have relatives in Switzerland, and have gotten a sense of the flaws as well as the things done well. But I do think they're way better about languages than us. (And I include myself in that--my own monolingualism is something I know I need to work on.)

[identity profile] papersky.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
They may well speak English, but it's appalling of anyone to demand it of them.

I mean I am about as Anglophone as anyone living in Montreal can be, and this comment made me bristle.

This is a French speaking province, if you want English act like someone who is part of a minority, not like someone entitled and you'll be fine.

[identity profile] corruptedjasper.livejournal.com 2009-08-15 11:44 pm (UTC)(link)
If you can't speak English, you shouldn't be on a customer-facing position *anywhere* in the western world, let alone in Canada. Especially not in a *hotel*, ferchrissake.

Note that I work for an ISP helpdesk in a single-language, non-English-speaking country[1] where every single agent is required to speak English as well, just for the occasional immigrant. Not majority American or British immigrants, mind you, that switch to English to deal with us.


[1] Well, there's Frisian, but we don't offer *that*.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 03:47 pm (UTC)(link)
I'd expect that in a hotel, yes, and likely in a restaurant as well.

(True story: I went to buy a camera battery in Lugano and discovered that the man in the camera shop in the center of one of the biggest tourist destinations in officially-multilingual Switzerland spoke NOTHING but Italian (not even French or German). That boggled me.

Now, to be fair, on rereading what [livejournal.com profile] kate_nepveu wrote above, she said "hotel staff" rather than making it clear if she was talking to client-facing staff. I'd have no such expectations of, say, housekeeping or maintenence staff, but front desk, restaurant, bell staff, concierge? Absolutely.
Edited 2009-08-12 15:48 (UTC)

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 12:40 am (UTC)(link)
Why? I mean, certainly you don't want to be the American who shouts really slowly, but I don't think you need to feel guilty about speaking English to Montreal customer service staff at a large international hotel. Unless you're fluent in French. Personally I'd worry that being able to say not much more than "bonjour" would come across as trying way too hard.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Why? I mean, I agree that it certainly is polite not to expect (in the "how dare you not SPEAK ENGLISH sense") that everyone on the planet is Anglophone. But in a country that is officially bilingual, in a hotel that has a lot of English-speaking clientele, where your native and primary language is English, merely speaking English doesn't strike me as an offensive act.

[identity profile] keristor.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 01:04 am (UTC)(link)
It's polite. I did try to say "bonjour" and followed it with "parlez-vous Anglais?" if I actually wanted to converse (if they had replied "non" then I would have attempted to continue in French, which would probably have been painful for both sides since I learnt it around 40 years ago and haven't really used it since). The exception was the hotel desk, where I had already confirmed that they were happy to use English with the guests (and indeed preferred it to having to decipher ancient school French).

The only place so far I've been stumped in learning at least the politenesses (hello, goodbye, please and thankyou) was in Guangzhou ('Canton', China), where the pitched tonal language defeated me. Apparently at least one of the ways I said "Ni ha" (hello) was rather rude, and I couldn't hear the difference, so I gave up rather than be impolite in a different way. I believe that if I at least start and end with attempting to use the local language people will be more willing to make the effort to communicate.

[identity profile] maradydd.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 10:51 am (UTC)(link)
Agreed with the polite. I live in a city in Flanders where probably 70% of the people are fluent in English (they tell me TV and movies have a lot to do with it), and even then I start off with "Dag, sprekt Engels?" if I know I'm not going to be able to blunder through in Flemish.

And I hear you on the tonal languages thing. A couple of my fellow linguistics students in grad school were from Shanghai, and they tried to teach me tones. Apparently I am tone deaf, since I failed epically. I still have no idea what I said, but apparently it was really funny.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
I'd feel better about it if I knew my country extended similar respect in turn, but living in a border state, I know too well that we don't.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
And, come to think about it...Canada's part of the Commonwealth (and uses UK spelling). How about tourists and business travellers from other English-speaking countries?

[identity profile] keristor.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 01:16 am (UTC)(link)
But they still drive on the wrong side[1] of the road *g*. The spelling is not too much of a problem, given how many people maek spelign erorrs all teh tiem the differences between American and British spellings rarely cause misunderstandings in practice. Some of the words, however (please do not go into a British Gentleman's Tailor and ask for a DJ, vest, pants and suspenders[2] like a couple of young American lads I knew did in the 60s!)...

[1] Which is, of course, the right side, due to oddities of the language...

[2] For the sake of any Americans who aren't familiar with the differences, what they wanted was an evening suit with a waistcoat, trousers and braces, what they asked for was a disc jockey with underwear and a garter belt...

[identity profile] lbmango.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I think we need a word somewhere between desire, expect, and demand...

I think it's probably ok to "sort-of figure that they'll probably" speak English. And to be "slightly surprised" if they don't. And being "Disappointed" is of course ok (I can be disappointed whenever things don't turn out my way...). However, being "annoyed" or "put-out" is not ok.

"Expect" has a bit of the "demand" connotation to it I think, which is why it's causing problems here. IMHO.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Huh. I don't think that "expect" has that connotation at all (to me, obviously YMMV).

And much agreed on the annoyed/put out reaction. I'd have been very surprised if the hotel staff didn't speak English but not annoyed

And I was pleasantly surprised that the staff of the French-language bookstore over by the Central Bus Station DID speak English.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
I took "expect" to mean "demand" as well.

[identity profile] troubleinchina.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Canada is officially bilingual, but this tends to play out more in theory than in practice, as your Googling discovered. (Governments and big companies do the bilingual thing fairly consistently.)

New Brunswick is the only place I've called where the phone is typically answered "Bonjour Hello?".

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
True. Quebec is obviously Francophone, but I've known very many Anglophone Canadians who didn't speak much more than a few phrases of French and were very resentful that they had to learn it in school. Canada has its "why can't they speak English?!" twerps too, I fear.
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2009-08-13 12:03 pm (UTC)(link)
It isn't actually a reasonable expectation, because it would be illegal for the hotel to make "speaks English" a job requirement there. Yes, most if not all Montreal hotels have at least some Anglophone front desk staff, because it is good business and because so many Montrealers are at least somewhat bilingual. But "many do" is different from "we can insist that all do," and it would be illegal employment discrimination.

[identity profile] corruptedjasper.livejournal.com 2009-08-15 11:49 pm (UTC)(link)
You have got to be kidding me.

You can't require your customer service people to speak the languages that profit requires them to be conversant with?

[identity profile] annewashere.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
What do you think is the right thing to do when you're not sure if the person you're talking to speaks English? I hadn't thought about it (stupid me) before we visited Montreal and sort of defaulted to saying "Hello" in response to "Bonjour", upon which every person we dealt with immediately switched to English. (some of them even said 'sorry', which: !!!)

I usually say 'lo siento hablo muy poco Espanol' in Mexico, but that's different since I do have a tiny bit of Spanish.

[identity profile] annewashere.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, awesome. I wish I had known that before I went.

I hope my apologetic expression made up for it!
ext_7025: (Default)

[identity profile] buymeaclue.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for that link! People/cultures are so cool.

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, cool! I didn't know that!
avram: (Default)

[personal profile] avram 2009-08-12 08:01 pm (UTC)(link)
My experience, and Chris's, was that when we started the conversation by speaking even our slow, poorly-accented French, we got taken for French-speakers.
avram: (Default)

[personal profile] avram 2009-08-12 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Teresa was talking, at the art show, about how it seems like French speakers have more highly developed muscles around their upper lips, and you can see it in their faces (and sometimes in art). I guess my facial hair conceals my flappy, undeveloped embrasure.

In Chris's case, her boss speaks fluent French, and she's pretty good at picking up bits of languages. She's also got a few words of Chinese from working at a Chinese company a decade or so back.

[identity profile] neverjaunty.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
A Quebecois friend of mine once informed me that the derogatory term (well, at least the one she would tell me) for Anglophone Canadians is "tete-carres", ie "square-heads". She said that they just looked like they had square heads. *shrug*

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow. When I started in French, they immediately switched to English!

[identity profile] papersky.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 07:26 pm (UTC)(link)
If you don't offer English, they usually won't*. You could be Latvian and your bad French the best hope of communication.

* The exception is if you're speaking English to a friend. They can then figure it out.

[identity profile] thistleingrey.livejournal.com 2009-08-14 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
Well, it'd be polite for your interlocutor to think that you might have sufficient vocab and syntax to keep on, even if it's "slow" and "poorly accented"....

[identity profile] icecreamempress.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I think that's your experience. My husband says "bonjour" back because that's what I say, and people talk with him in French, which he does not speak. But he is a dark-haired white man.

[identity profile] janni.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
So is opening with "bonjour hi" considered more correct (or maybe just more useful?) than opening with "parlez-vous anglais?"

I've found in German, French, and Spanish speaking places that asking in the language if they speak English gets one a little farther than just starting in English, even if that's all the non-English one knows.

(Except in Iceland. As far as I can tell the expectation there is that one start in the language one wishes to continue in, and one can sprinkle in one's handful of Icelandic words later.)

[identity profile] fledgist.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 11:21 am (UTC)(link)
Montréal is a bilingual city, and "bonjour hi" is simply the way that service employees figure out which language to use to the people they're serving. If you respond "Bonjour, je veux.." they continue in French. If you answer, "Hi, I'd like..." they continue in English.

Monoglot Anglophones and Francophones abound in Canada, but it happens that Montreal is on the boundary of the two language zones,and it's been to the advantage of the Montrealais to be bilingual. In general, bilinguality is a characteristic of a subaltern group occupying a strategic (economic or cultural location), and the Montrealais are not unusual in this regard, though a bit less adept than, say Curaçaoans, Lagotians, or Dangrigans.

[identity profile] papersky.livejournal.com 2009-08-13 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Much more.

"Bonjour hi" is the way we do it here.

[identity profile] jonquil.livejournal.com 2009-08-16 07:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! ::makes mental note::
avram: (Default)

[personal profile] avram 2009-08-12 08:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Do feel free to add to this list.

Should we add things we think you did wrong, or volunteer things we did wrong?

Here's one of the latter: When Kathryn Cramer apologized to me last Thursday for some things she had said to me in email, I accepted without suggesting to her that she should instead publicly acknowledge that her behavior in the matter of OutingFail was reprehensible, and apologize to CoffeeAndInk and the other offended parties. That option didn't even occur to me until last night. What you said about socialization taking over.
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[identity profile] radiotelescope.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 08:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Grrgromp.

I had seen "bonjourhi" described in a much clumsier way -- essentially as "This is a cute Montreal thing! Enjoy it!" -- and so I completely skipped over subsequent discussion and ignored it.

Blah. Well, I've acted like a jerk before this in my life.

[identity profile] tonko.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't think it's thoughtless to speak to hotel staff in English first--I live here and I always start off in English. Though I do have the luxury of switching to French if I need to. Montreal very often has both for many people, so I use the one I like best first.

I can't think of anything you did badly (not that I was in your vicinity most of the time!) I remember being surprised at first at how businesslike you were with keeping panel discussions going, I thought it made things feel rushed at times--but that was, as I said, at first. After I attended a few rather more sedate and/or directionless panels I changed my mind. Competant moderaters are valuable.

This is the only Worldcon I've ever been to, by the way, my previous experience with panels is basically nil.

[identity profile] 2muchexposition.livejournal.com 2009-08-15 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Not to make this about me, but one of the things I did wrong was to not come up and say hi to you after the NotSlans panel. I certainly intended to, but I was low on social (and caloric) fuel, so I spaced, and left the panel room instead of waiting. Since then, I have been reminding myself that chances to talk to you in person are rare treats, and that next time I need to be better about making sure they happen.