This is about something that has annoyed me for a long time but I have always thought that it might be impoliteness, political incorrectness, or just plain bigotry on my part; so I haven't brought it up in public before, but the last conference I attended just compounded it.

The IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE) was just held at the Airport Marriott in Los Angeles. The conference, which is a must-attend if you really want to see what ICs are coming down the pipe in the next twelve months, was on the West Coast for the first time. Previously it had been held at the O'Hare Westin which has managed, for every reservation I have made there, to resell my guaranteed room: But that's another story. The move to the West Coast seemed to make the location a lot more attractive for attendees, probably by the ease of access from the Far East and the innumerable choice of flights from Europe.

But this conference, in line with many in recent years, had speakers who had no facility in spoken English! This reminds me of a flight to London a few years back when a customer service representative was traveling aboard this particular United Airlines flight and was tracking down and quizzing frequent fliers. She expressed wonderment to me about the way that things had changed since her PanAm days, how great it was that the purser on the flight was of Chinese extraction. My concerns came out like bullets: "I don't care that he speaks Mandarin. I do care that I cannot understand his English over a PA system. I do care that I would therefore not understand his instructions in an emergency."

Another similar situation has occurred at the Technical Emmy awards virtually every year. It is not at all uncommon for an award to a non-U.S. company to be received by the most senior person available -- and it is very prestigious -- but it is astonishing how often that person speaks only a garbled or pidgin English. At such a ceremony which has, incidentally, a mode of procession like a religious event, it probably matters not too much; everyone knows the gentleman is saying "thank you," "We weren't expecting this," "We hardly deserve it," etc. and you can just wait it out and applaud when it looks like he is finished and is brandishing the award above his head as if it were a broadsword and he were leading us to battle.

But at a technical conference I go to listen the papers of interest, hopefully presented in a way that is different from the stuffy paper version, and to hear the questions and answers at the end of the paper. If I can't understand the speaker why would I go at all? Why not get the Digest and stay at home to read the papers in much more comfort and for a great deal less money?

I wouldn't dream of going to Germany and giving a paper in pidgin German, nor Korean, Japanese or any other language not my own. If I felt the paper had to be presented in the home language, or that was the language specified for the conference, I would get someone to do it for me! So is it unreasonable of me to expect all presenters from all nations to do the same for me?

It seems to have gotten worse in the last few years and although it is more often presenters from the Far East -- probably because there is a large percentage of technical papers from there -- it is also applicable to speakers from a number of European countries who have heavy accents. I actually had to leave the room maybe three times in Los Angeles because I just couldn't take it.

I'm not going to suggest that all conference attendees acquire a large stock of rotten tomatoes for ammunition purposes at non-intelligible speakers, but I do think that conference organizers need to get an additional line or two on their submission sheets saying, in essence, that the authors recognize that the language of the conference is English -- or whatever the language is -- and that they warrant that the chosen presenter speaks an understandable version of that fine language.

Is that too much to ask or am I just a disgruntled, cranky journalist

By: Paul McGoldrick
Sr. Technology Editor, EDTN

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