Master of Languages and Guardian of their Usage
The EM Football championship is over, Alex’s passing away has been over 4 months ago and yet the Financial Times newspaper continues to be delivered daily to his desk at work as if the Financial Times hasn’t yet heard the tragic news of Alex’s death.
You must be wondering why on earth would Alex have subscribed to an English language magazine and newspaper.
The reason is that Alex was always concerned with the educational development and welfare of his work colleagues. I being someone who never read the newspaper other than the sports section, it took a lot of effort from Alex to convince me to share in the subscription costs to an esteemed business and economics newspaper. (Not that Alex was not willing to cover the costs himself; he knew too well that I was motivated by money and that if I had a made a financial investment, I would be more inclined to read the paper. I actually wanted to subscribe to the International Herald Tribune but Alex also knew that I would only be reading the sports section).
For Alex co-subscribing to an English language newspaper was a major compromise in his language ethics: Alex was always fighting against the non-stop invasion of English in the corporate world at UBS. Whenever one of us used an English expression (be it in a written presentation/document, in a meeting or during a break) he immediately objected. He was the language watchdog and the equivalent of l’office québécois de la langue française. He was also always correcting our language. German not being our native language for some of us, Alex was regularly highlighting our mistakes so that we would learn and improve. For me this was not only limited to German. There were numerous occasions where Alex would even correct my (sloppy) English (and mother tongue).
Alex had a high standard in any foreign language he mastered. When he chose to speak English he spoke with a high level regardless of the situation and audience. For example Alex recounted the time that he was in the United States where he once went to the hotel office to ask if he and Brigitte could spend another night. If you have been to the United States and experienced the substandard education of some service staff, you can relate to the puzzlement on the hotel concierge’s face as Alex requested „We would like to prolong our sojourn“.