WSJ: Foreigners Think Sarcasm a Bit Too Clever

In Global Era
By PHRED DVORAK
Wall Street Journal
November 5, 2007; Page B1

Computer Sciences Corp., a U.S. technology consultancy with offices in 49 countries, last year made a peculiar request to the company that teaches English to its employees around the world. CSC wanted the company to give them lessons on detecting sarcasm.
Bente Holm Skov, CSC's European director of learning, says even employees who understand their colleagues' English are often stumped by their senses of humor. One French worker took offense when a British colleague jokingly referred to a fellow Brit as "not too clever" on a conference call.

GlobalEnglish Corp., which offers online English lessons for corporations like CSC, doesn't yet offer sarcasm tips, but it is working on it. The company says it is one of many quirky requests it has fielded as English -- already the lingua franca for global commerce -- spreads further inside multinational corporations as well. Clients have sought help in navigating different cultures, understanding Arabic or Indian accents, and speaking English with eloquence, says Mahesh Ram, GlobalEnglish's vice president of business development.

The demands on GlobalEnglish and other companies in the field suggest that employees don't always grasp the meaning of what a colleague says, even if they are speaking the same language.