Is Language Necessary?

In my favorite book “Trader, Guns and Money” I was again fascinated by the power of fine language filled with public school vocabularies and concise yet twisted sentence construction. The Indonesia noodle maker got themselves into trouble by entering the derivatives contracts with some prestigious brand-name investment banks and registered hundreds of millions of loss. The Indonesians wanted to bail themselves out by waging a legal action.

The i-bank people outnumbered the law firm, everyone from the law firm seemed wanting to run out of the door after the i-bank’s head of trading in Asia condemned with the most blasphemy language you could ever imagine “They signed the F****** contracts, they F****** knew what they are getting themselves in F******* to! The meeting is F******* wasting of my F********* time.” The head of the law firm was an old English gentlemen, in his 50’s, stood up and stared at the ballistic raging trader with no trace of timidity. He said “If you have finished your speech then it is my turn, and you sir, shall listen”. He’s stressed the Indonesian’s unsophisticated financial knowledge and implied the totally financial knowledge superior i-bank might have exploited that as an opportunity. He stressed that Financial Times might be interested to put the case into the front line because it has obviously violated her majesty’s FSA (Financial blah blah Association) regulation, which alleges financial institutes are obliged to sell products to customers based on suitability. The lawyers walked out without waiting any further response from the angry and silent opponents. Not a sure win, but at least the old English man has suppressed the “chi” at his enemy. Fancy words and supreme confidences had helped the tiny law firm to stand up in front of the filthily rich and rude i-bank staff.

The author remarked, there is no wonder that the tiny island used to rule the world, with its big vocabularies and legal system. You are easily to be convinced and steered though English is not your first language.

Language is not the most effective way to transmit emotions and feelings. I think most of the time it causes more confusion, does more harm than good because most of us do not want to listen, or the most common cause, misinterpretation.

Hanging out with friends in the noisy pub in city of London, conversation is limited. With different accents of English throwing about the air, I tended not able to follow conversation most of the time, but still able to have good fun, feel getting closer to your friends.