[gmku]

Most interviews I've gone through have been fairly straightforward and sensible. No really weird questions. However, yesterday, I got one that floored me. "How would you rate your proficiency with the English language?"

Huh!? I'm applying for a technical editor job. I have 20 years of experience as a writer and editor for higher education and government.

But more than just kind of being floored at this being a question to ask of someone of my experience, I really was not quite sure what they meant. My proficiency? How would I rate it? Oh, like, 9.8 out of 10?

I really stammered with my response, perhaps betraying that my proficiency is not something to brag about after all. LOL. I basically told them that I consider myself highly proficient in English, thanks to my undergraduate degree in journalism and my minor in English, and that I've been an editor and a writer most of my adult life. I also added that I don't pretend to know it all, that language is always evolving, and that I'm always surprised that there is more to learn about the English language. Something like that. Not quite as clearly as I've put it here.

How would you have answered that?