What does that even mean?

While meaningless marketing babble continues to flood into everyday English, another problem is being experienced in many foreign languages. A sprinkling of exotic terms from abroad (often, but not, always English) might seem cool (or easy) for the writer, but it can become a barrier to communication.

In the same way that Six Sigma analysis sometimes asks 'the five whys' to get to the root cause of a problem, we might as communication 'experts' ask ourselves 'but what does that actually mean?' - five times over, naturally. It would help us to root out pointless jargon put our point across more effectively.

And where foreign languages are concerned, it's useful to ask 'isn't there a word for that in our own language?' There probably is.

Language skills - Use them or lose them

It’s never been easier to keep your hard-earned language skills alive - the Web offers access to masses of free content as well as enabling us to buy movies, books and the like as they come out. But if you think the social element is missing in all this, check out Meetup.

I was surprised to find (I shouldn’t be) two active Italian Meetup groups in my area (Greater Manchester, UK). The city centre group has a good mix of ‘real’ Italians and people like me who - as a friend cheekily puts it - like Dolmio. They get together once a month for a meal or a drink - and to bemoan the fact that you can’t get a decent cappuccino anywhere in the UK. Last thing I heard they were starting a reading group - which reminds me. I need to sign up to that.