BUSINESS ENGLISH WORD OF THE DAY: Incommunicado

The Word of the Day today for Business English Paris is INCOMMUNICADO

In French it means au secret, isolé, séquestrer


Hello Darlings! Happy Sunday!

I am working seven days per week now because it is better than sitting in my studio staring at the walls. What an appropriate word I found today for you. INCOMMUNICADO.

You may need this while you are incommunicado

The French for this is, I think, isolé. But as per usual, don't quote me.


These days, we are all incommunicado and it looks like this is getting worse as the coronavirus spreads worldwide. The only two places where I don't hear frightening statistics (and in this case no news may not necessarily be good news) are Africa and Russia. 

Not sure if that is because I consume as little news as possible to guard against being stressed to a point of being so overwhelmed with the bad news that I can't function anymore, or if it is because the news really is not so dire in these two locations.

President Putin of Russia has truly been incommunicado lately. Has anyone heard anything about him? I haven't seen or heard of him in a long while. Where is he? As for Africa and all these countries on the continent, I worry a little bit. Do they have the resources to deal with this crisis? Are they immune because of their geographical and climactic characteristics from this particular virus? India also seems to be faring pretty well. 

But in Europe, we are isolated and have been rendered incommunicado with the mandatory confinement as governments begin to synchroinize their responses in an effort to contain the virus and flatten the curve.

How would you use the word incommunicado in a work context? Have you ever taken off from work and rendered yourself incommunicado, for example? I am talking prior to this current situation with the coronavirus? Maybe you made yourself incommunicado after a particularly difficult project was completed and you needed a time out from work? When you have been incommunicado, what do you do? Do you put up your vacation response on your email as a starting point? Then maybe you power off your cellphone and don't charge it for days? Do you stop looking at the news? Stop searching the Internet? I would love to talk to you about this. Because even if you have never had an interval where you deliberately made yourself incommunicado, it would be interesting to talk about it from a purely rhetorical standpoint. How would you do it? What would you do during that ime? Where would you go? And who would you block out of your life during this time. And why? 

Note: During this time, I am offering strictly telephone conversation courses to respect the order of President Emmanuel Macron who has issued a directive as you know that the French population must remain under curfew for the next 15 days. If you would like to start or continue with English conversation lessons therefore, it will be strictly by telephone. I look forward to speaking with you, que même. I have noticed that I now have visitors from countries other than France including Germany, United Arab Emirites, Belgium, Spain and Oman. You are also welcomed to take English conversation with me if you like :) 


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