Language!

Forget about Chinglish/Manglish; at least it’s funny. The worst English in the world has got to be corporate-speak: Corpselish. There’s a company that’s been spamming me for about a year now: CHaINA LIVE.

My first reply to them was naturally “Who are you and why are you spamming me?” which resulted in them, four ignored spams down the line, taking the trouble to find out my name, and address me as Dear Cecilie in their next spam, not just “Dear, “. But really, when someone spams me, why the hell is it up to me to painstakingly go through the rigmarole of scrolling down, finding ‘unsubscribe’ if there is one, and clicking through a forest of pages shouting “Wait! Don’t go yet!” and “Are you sure you want to unsubscribe?” No, because I didn’t fcuking subscribe, did I?

It’s much more satisfying to reply to their email and get their grovelling apology. (Yes, it happens sometimes.) They are the ones who should spend the time taking me off their spamlist where I shouldn’t have been in the first place. But CHaINa is made of sterner stuff. Again and again the send me stuff – most of which unintelligible.

Last week there they were again, with a gushing invitation to … I’m not sure what.

“As in previous years, CHaINA’11 Live will feature an impressive line-up of sessions with 50+ speakers – organized around 25+ tracks/streams – covering the latest and top issues in supply chain, manufacturing, sourcing, procurement, logistics and operations with a focus on Greater China.”

Top issues in supply chain? How do they know I will think the line-up is impressive? Speakers organised around tracks? Running, perhaps?

“We are now looking for media partners for this event and media packages offer a unique opportunity to reach senior worldwide supply chain and business decision-makers face to face. Our event showcases top operations perspectives, world-class management strategies and cutting-edge practices in a spontaneous and engaging format.”

What’s a media package and how can a package offer a unique opportunity? How do you showcase (if that is indeed a verb) a perspective? How can a format be engaging? Or spontaneous, for that matter? I’m not even sure what a media partner is. Journalist? Editor? Or do they want money for putting my logo on their spontaneous and engaging baseball caps? Also: How can a strategy be world-class?

I won’t torture you with more of their wordy invitation, but every sentence carried on in the same vein, paragraph after painful paragraph. After three times of reading through the email I still had no idea what it meant. I wrote to the guy, Max Henry, asking him to kindly explain what it was he had invited me to and why I should be there. Ten days have passed and I still haven’t received an answer. He probably doesn’t want me as a media partner after all.