Behind the times–or just speaking another language?

Was attracted in a Google news alert by the headline “How safe is your painkiller?”–thinking I might find some new information on this popular subject. Frankly, I was surprised to find that the Hindustan Times had an article full of stuff that, by the terms of most American publications, is pretty old hat–comparing aspirin and ibuprofen, for example. Interestingly, the article then compared aspirin and ibuprofen with cox inhibitors and with Paracetamol, but didn’t say what “paracetamol” is. So I looked it up, and it seems to be another word for acetominophen–a word used in many other countries instead of acetominophen.

Well, if we’re all going global in our markets, we might as well start learning each other’s vocabularies in important areas like health care. While the French may decry Americanisms, they do bandy about terms like “le weekend.” In the business world, it makes great sense to start building a common language as quickly as possible–the Internet is not going away.