Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

LINGUA FRANCA If a meeting is taking place in Germany in the Teutonic-looking conference room of a corporation that is sufficiently international or European, and one of the persons in the room doesn’t speak German, the entire meeting will be run in … English, the brand of inelegant English used in corporations across the world. That way they can equally offend their Teutonic ancestors and the English language. It all started with the asymmetric rule that those who are nonnative in English know (bad) English, but the reverse—English speakers knowing other languages—is less likely. French was supposed to be the language of diplomacy, as civil servants coming from aristocratic backgrounds used it, while their more vulgar compatriots involved in commerce relied on English. In the rivalry between the two languages, English won as commerce grew to dominate modern life; the victory has nothing to do with the prestige of France or the efforts of their civil servants in promoting their more or less beautiful Latinized and logically spelled language over the orthographically confusing one of trans-Channel meat-pie eaters.