We bang all the time! --- Do we? When a started my term in the UN Joint Inspection Unit a non-native speaker (from The Dominican Republic) married with one native (United States), explained to me (another non-native speaker) that the word "bang", in a certain context, may mean also something incompatible with the language of a diplomat. The action suggested by the word "bang" was the reason for the divorce between the two. Since then I avoided the word.

Till today, when I saw that the word is used so graciously by our distinguished professor. However, I made sure that Khrushchev gesture is retained in history as the "the shoe-banging" episode.

Source author: Petru Dumitriu PetruD@diplomacy.edu