実践ビジネス英語 Thursday, January 31
1) Lyons recommends avoiding the use of humor in business emails as things like sarcasm and irony can be misunderstood. Collins says email should be answered promptly even if just to tell the sender you received the email and indicate when you will respond fully. Lyons recommends not sending the same email repeatedly if one doesn't receive a response, which can appear aggressive or impatient.
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Going Email-Free (5)
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2) I sympathize with you: Another way to put this would be "I feel for you" as in "'I really feel for John.' He's had to do overtime every day for a week."
3) conundrum: A difficult or complicated problem. For example, "Politicians often face the 'conundrum' of how to cut deficits without raising taxes too much.
4) well-intended: Done with good intentions, in other words. Lyons also
could have said "well-intentioned" emails. There is a rather dramatic expression that uses intentions, "The road to hell is paved with 'good intentions.'" And this basically means that "well-intended" actions sometimes have very bad results. Imagine someone recommends an investment to a friend and it goes bust. You know, the friend loses a lot of money. We might say, "Uh, he meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
5) misconstrue: Again this means misinterpret, misunderstand the meaning of
something. Let's say a colleague doesn't answer my email for quite some time. Now they are actually just busy, but I might "misconstrue" the delay and think they are upset with me.
6) timely: This refers to things done at the appropriate time, the suitable time. You might hear about a "timely" book that discusses European debt problems, or politicians could make a "timely" intervention in the foreign exchange markets.
7) courteous gesture: In this case, "gesture" is an action or statement made
to convey one's intentions or feelings. If a colleague helped me on a project, I might treat them to lunch as a "gesture" of appreciation.
8) within a certain time frame: "Within a certain period of time," in other
words "a period of time when something occurs or is expected to occur. Let's say someone asks me to check an English presentation for them. I might ask, "What kind of 'time frame' are we looking at?" In other words, "'Within what period of time' do you need me to
finish?"
9) well-armed: Well-equipped, well-prepared, Umemura means. There's also the
expression "forewarned is forearmed," meaning if we know about something in advance, we can get ready for it. Imagine you have a meeting with a new client and you are told they like to hear lots of data. You might reply, "Thanks.
'Forewarned is forearmed.' I'll make sure to have plenty of numbers
ready."
