Ideas Have No Accent

At 360 AXE, we know how frustrating it can be to have an idea clearly in your head but struggle to communicate it because the language you are speaking is not your first language.

An accent is evidence that someone learned another language. It is not evidence of how intelligent they are.

Yet we routinely confuse fluency with intelligence, pronunciation with competence, and confidence in a language with confidence in an idea.

Sometimes even highly educated, thoughtful people — including people deeply committed to education, science and fighting discrimination — can unconsciously make this mistake. Linguistic bias is particularly difficult to notice because it often disguises itself as correcting pronunciation, improving communication, or simply “speaking properly.”

But the person searching for the right English word may understand the subject better than the person correcting them.

Many of us at 360 AXE have experienced this ourselves. That is why we try to separate the quality of an idea from the quality of the language used to express it.

We don’t care whether an idea arrives in perfect English.

We care whether it is a good idea.

Because intelligence has no accent.