They may even be shocked by the more modern style used today in emails. Nevertheless, senior staff members are often from an older generation and may favour the old-fashioned writing style.
Happily, that has changed in many respects and throughout many departments. When I started teaching writing skills at the United Nations some twenty years ago, people were writing in a style reminiscent of the 1950s or earlier. Linguists talk about parentese, a term for the way parents talk to their young children like legalese, language containing an excessive amount of legal terminology so why not UNese? They learned the craft of UNese, as it were.
Then, at the United Nations, they arrived in a section where they were told they had to include pomp and ceremony in all their writing.
CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO WORLDS I.C.U. FULL
Their clients had neither the time nor the inclination to read voluminous texts full of antiquated language. They had to write concisely and to the point. Many tell me that when they joined the United Nations, they came from the private sector, where they had to build up good rapport with clients.
People working in the international organizations are often caught between two different worlds a formal diplomatic one and a more informal collegial one.
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