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-- bad grammar
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quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog Ha! What a load of bollocks. If I can write and speak English correctly, anyone else who has also learnt the language from birth should be able to also. It's not hard. Many non-native English speakers such as the Dutch, ze Germans etc write beautiful English on the internet (it amazes me consistently actually), in some ways superior to even a good native speaking English writer. If they can, why shouldn't someone who has been doing it since birth be able to?

1. First of all, speaking and writing are completely different phenomena. A child naturally learns to speak as long as there's some stimulus (i.e. you won't speak if there's no one talking around you). Our brain is prepared to recognise "vocal symbols" as a form of communication. All healthy humans living in society speak.
   
   That's not what happens with writing. Not all languages are written, and no one spontaneously begins to write. That's why you can be illiterate even if your language can be written (actually, all languages can be written in some way, but that's not the point).
   
   
2. Not all of us have access to good education. If you never had the chance to learn how punctuation marks are used, you probably won't acquire this ability by osmosis. You can learn how to say a question by imitating the way others ask questions to you, but how are you supposed to do that in writing, specially in a language (such as English) where the syntax can make it perfectly clear that a sentence is a question by just changing the word order?
   
   And that's why foreigners tend to write in English better than the natives themselves: most foreigners that do speak English often had the chance to go to good schools, otherwise they wouldn't have learnt a foreign language. Also, foreign languages don't mean bugger all to us at first, and we often need to resort to written language in order to learn the spoken variety. I certainly read in English a lot more than I do in Portuguese, and TA has helped me a lot. Finally, we're used to speaking a different language in which homophones might not sound alike: that's why I hardly ever mix up words like "accept" and "except" - they're completely different in Portuguese. That's why "the Dutch and ze German" are less prone to make spelling mistakes. And, on top of that, their mistakes are often different from the kind of mistakes native speakers do, so they're often less stigmatised.
   
   
3. Writing in English is a bit more difficult than it should be. Thanks to the Great Vowel Shift, spelling words in English has become a bit of a challenge ("break" and "brake" rhyme, whereas "though" and "through" don't), and the spelling reforms in the Renaissance didn't help at all (they're the ones to blame for many silent letters, such as the "s" in "island" and the "b" in "debt"). And, unfortunately, English is now spread across all continents and comes in many different flavours. Most Americans could easily spell "caught" and "cot" the same way, for example, but Australians would probably find that confusing.
   
   Therefore, don't take your good writing skills for granted.
   

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog What, so you didn't learn in grade 3 that "you're" is the incorrect way to describe a person's possession?

The fact that you actually had to learn this is a sign that writing is not that easy.

When was the last time someone told you to raise your intonation if you want to ask a question?

(That's how you ask questions in Australian English, right? I know the Irish don't always do that, and I don't know about any Irish influence in Australian prosody)

i have a habit of laughing at spelling mistakes when read e-mails/ims, etc.

in my head, i correct certain grammar errors when i read articles... for example if i see "the students dropped they're pencil" or "you're waisting your time"...roflmao

i'm a nerd, i know

lolz im drunk. f this thread till tomorrow.

quote:

Originally posted by Lira First of all, speaking and writing are completely different phenomena. A child naturally learns to speak as long as there's some stimulus (i.e. you won't speak if there's no one talking around you). Our brain is prepared to recognise "vocal symbols" as a form of communication. All healthy humans living in society speak. That's not what happens with writing. Not all languages are written, and no one spontaneously begins to write. That's why you can be illiterate even if your language can be written (actually, all languages can be written in some way, but that's not the point). Not all of us have access to good education. If you never had the chance to learn how punctuation marks are used, you probably won't acquire this ability by osmosis. You can learn how to say a question by imitating the way others ask questions to you, but how are you supposed to do that in writing, specially in a language (such as English) where the syntax can make it perfectly clear that a sentence is a question by just changing the word order? And that's why foreigners tend to write in English better than the natives themselves: most foreigners that do speak English often had the chance to go to good schools, otherwise they wouldn't have learnt a foreign language. Also, foreign languages don't mean bugger all to us at first, and we often need to resort to written language in order to learn the spoken variety. I certainly read in English a lot more than I do in Portuguese, and TA has helped me a lot. Finally, we're used to speaking a different language in which homophones might not sound alike: that's why I hardly ever mix up words like "accept" and "except" - they're completely different in Portuguese. That's why "the Dutch and ze German" are less prone to make spelling mistakes. And, on top of that, their mistakes are often different from the kind of mistakes native speakers do, so they're often less stigmatised. Writing in English is a bit more difficult than it should be. Thanks to the Great Vowel Shift, spelling words in English has become a bit of a challenge ("break" and "brake" rhyme, whereas "though" and "through" don't), and the spelling reforms in the Renaissance didn't help at all (they're the ones to blame for many silent letters, such as the "s" in "island" and the "b" in "debt"). And, unfortunately, English is now spread across all continents and comes in many different flavours. Most Americans could easily spell "caught" and "cot" the same way, for example, but Australians would probably find that confusing. Therefore, don't take your good writing skills for granted.

All valid points which I agree with.

However, I'm not talking about kids living in slums with no education.

I'm talking about well-educated people with privileged upbringings good jobs, who still speak and write like absolute fuck wits.

Plus, I definitely agree with your "osmosis" idea of speaking vs writing, however people in English speaking countries ARE exposed to written English, all day.

On advertisements, on menu's [sic], on television. Everywhere.

There is no excuse for making basic spelling/grammar mistakes consistently, unless you are prepared to admit that you are, in fact, retarded.

By the way, this isn't limited to writing. You hear people say incorrect things all the time, such as "vica versa", "I been there", "I done that", "I was more colder than I've ever been", "I felt asleep", "I rung the police", etc etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog However, I'm not talking about kids living in slums with no education. I'm talking about well-educated people with privileged upbringings good jobs, who still speak and write like absolute fuck wits. There is no excuse for making basic spelling/grammar mistakes consistently, unless you are prepared to admit that you are, in fact, retarded.

agreed!

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog There is no excuse for making basic spelling/grammar mistakes consistently, unless you are prepared to admit that you are, in fact, retarded.

Yes, there are many "excuses".

Before I continue, though, I must ask you something. Have you ever read anything about this subject, or are you just saying all this out of prejudice?

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog Just another example of America changing the rules of the English language to suit themselves. It's ironic, some of you Americans in this thread are sticklers for spelling and/or grammar, yet the butcherig of the English language is completely and utterly ingrained in your whole country! There's probably a whole lot of words you spell incorrectly (anywhere but America anyway) that you don't even know about...

Just like any other social product, there's a reason for that...

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog Just another example of America changing the rules of the English language to suit themselves.

you realize there are more than one form of English out there?

Re: Re: Re: bad grammar

quote:

Originally posted by Omega_Blue Anyone else here see the problem with this?

Is this still cool in this thread??

quote:

Originally posted by verndogs you realize there are more than one form of English out there?

The idea that language is a unified entity seems to delude some people, so Americans can have a different accent, but they can't spell words their way.

See the logic behind that? I don't

So this thread went from off-topic-suck-fest to serious-grammar-discussion-suck-fest pretty quick, huh?

quote:

Originally posted by verndogs you realize there IS more than one form of English out there?

Fixed.

Yes. There is good english (GB), and there is bad english (US).

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm Fixed. Yes. There is good english (GB), and there is bad english (US).

see Hinglish and also...

* Chinglish
* Engrish
* Franglais
* Indian English
* Poglish
* Singlish
* Spanglish
* Sri Lankan English
* Taglish

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm Fixed. Yes. There is good english (GB), and there is bad english (US).

the bad is always more common than the good, nothing new here.

quote:

Originally posted by noikeee the bad is always more common than the good, nothing new here.

Tu tá dizeno que o portugueis do Brasiu tamém é ruim!?

Tu tá dizeno isso!? Voceis que começaro a falar as coisa errada!!!1

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog I propose that we take away contractions from those who do not have the necessary mental power to use them, just like we take away cars from bad drivers.

fukken signed.

quote:

Originally posted by verndogs you realize there are more than one form of English out there?

'form' is singular

edit: bah, somebody already got it

quote:

Originally posted by chimera66 people on their way to degrees from top 10 undergraduate programs and their writing was full of simple mistakes...if you ask me, that's ridiculous and unacceptable.

fit to my own experiences [not fixed]

I still remember the first time I actually had to do a peer edit in college. The first sentence was, "I sometimes think its a good idea to use math to help me with opinions." I couldn't believe what I was reading. I filled the entire first half of the page with ink, then just fixed the grammatical mistakes in the second paragraph and added brackets and "rephrase" to all the text.


anyway, going back to the 'judging people on the basis of grammar' discussion, the environment matters a hell of a lot more than anything. I rarely pay attention to grammar people use online, unless the mistakes are so blatantly obvious that it's clear that the result isn't one of laziness or a lack of the usual attention (e.g. placement of adverbs or ambiguous pronouns, as opposed to butchered contractions or use of incorrect homophones).

If someone starts a paper with the word 'I,' or says in conversation, "Me and Mary want to the store," yes, I'll assume the person to be either ignorant, dumb, or anti-intellectual to a point at which it actually affects his knowledge. In other words, I won't take him seriously.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm Fixed. Yes. There is good english (GB), and there is bad english (US).

yeano

language has always evolved. both versions have their own bastardized offspring, but gangsta rap isn't American English, anyway. Hop on off that anti-American bandwagon, now, cowboy.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm I'm in denial that there can be more than one form of correct English

Fixed

quote:

Originally posted by inconspicuous 'form' is singular edit: bah, somebody already got it

I spent 3 months of my life memorizing grammar rules for the GMATs. Cut me some slack

quote:

Originally posted by Beat Blog "Learned" = An adjective to described a well educated person. "The professor is well learned in the subject of grammar". "Learnt" = A verb to describe learning a certain fact in the past "He learnt that his grammar was incorrect". However, a little research reveals that, in American English, "learned" is in fact correct to use in both cases. http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexpe...spelling/learnt Just another example of America changing the rules of the English language to suit themselves. It's ironic, some of you Americans in this thread are sticklers for spelling and/or grammar, yet the butcherig of the English language is completely and utterly ingrained in your whole country! There's probably a whole lot of words you spell incorrectly (anywhere but America anyway) that you don't even know about...

I see what you are saying, but I am American and I teach ESL in Australia using a British book and 'learned / learnt' are both taught for the past of learn.

Interesting that someone being such a stickler about Americans and how we 'butcher' the English language and complaining about usuage, blah blah has a grammar error in your post.

quote:

Originally posted by klingklang77 is taught as both being the past of learn.

quote:

Originally posted by inconspicuous

I know. It's late, I have been drinking. Forgive me.

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