I have never been able to convince my IFIP colleagues that as a Welshman English is to me a foreign language. The consequence is that I have been seen as a natural candidate for work on written material such as Aims and Scopes for TCs and WGs and Statutes and Bylaws. Reading or writing a foreign language is difficult enough but listening to a foreign language, spoken in a wide variety of accents, often at speed, calls for great concentration and can be very tiring. Those of us fortunate enough to have English as our first language have cause to be grateful for the efforts of our international colleagues - and should resolve to speak more slowly. There is, of course, some divergence between the two sides of the Atlantic in the spelling of written English.
Care is needed over different meanings of a given word.
My first visit was to 3, Rue du Marche in Geneva where Gwyneth Roberts worked in a garret reminiscent of one occupied by a consumptive soprano in a tragic opera. Longemalle produced a great improvement in the accommodation, supplemented by archive storage in the sub-basement of the municipal buildings. I hope that IFIP people slept more soundly in the knowledge that our archives were secure against nuclear explosion. Finally in 1995 there was the international move to Laxenburg, just outside Vienna. Our accommodation there is positively palatial and we have ample space to provide good service to IFIP people.