What a pleasure and surprise to read this wonderfully accessible volume on cross-cultural language use! The fact is that in this increasingly globalized and transnational world, nothing could be more important than knowing - more than what to say and when - what NOT to say and why not. The authors write about timely issues from the perspectives of their own cross-cultural and cross-linguistic lived histories. - Diana Boxer, Professor and Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Department of Linguistics, University of Florida; author of The Lost Art of the Good Schmooze sakriti opis