> Often with great difficulty, claims Allyson Stewart-Allen, an American marketing consultant who was sent over to London by PA Consultancy Group two decades ago, learnt the language and has stayed on ever since. When she arrived she admits she had problems.
> "I didn't know whether being pear-shaped was good or bad, what a damp squib was or if being knackered was faintly improper. But being an outsider meant that I could ask questions which nobody else dared raise. In a first meeting over here it's considered totally inappropriate to mention money, but I could act the naïve American and as…