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Cyclist33

Guest
Location
Warrington
That "yeah" thing is quite important though for the speaker to gauge the comprehensibility (sorry!) of what they're saying, and is surely part of the art of conversation? Stu

I find it irritating when people use "big" words when plain English can be used easily instead. There is another message board I read that has many contributors who always seem to be out to belittle others with their use of poncey language.

Back to spoken English, my pet peeve is when pepole say "yeah?" as if they are checking you understand what they just said, yeah?

I don't know why I get so precious about such things; I'm not even English. ^_^
 
Location
Beds
Ahhh, but when your first language is English, you don't need to learn any others.
;)

Yes, I have identify that as one of the reasons British people limit their knowledge in one (ofter poorly used as well) language. For other cultures, learning foreign languages is just a matter of education (same as a university degree) and not the need to communicate (or the lack of it). I also think that, because English is a quite simple language (in terms of its grammar etc) it makes it really hard to grasp the way more complicated languages (like German, French, Greek, etc) are functioning. I know, for example, how difficult was for my BF to understand that objects have a gender, and that you have to learn their gender by heart in order to speak even to a basic level.. :laugh: Tricky business.. ;)
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Right on. One of my workmates is dyslexic and he tells me that because of this he always makes a special effort with his writing, not just using a spellchecker but checking it himself and not just for spelling. He won't send an email or letter etc without being reasonably sure it's in good order.

His written work is, perhaps not surprisingly, better than almost anyone's. I like this about him. Rather than hide behind his limitations, he challenged himself to understand and surpass them. It sounds like you do the same.

Stu


My boss is very dyslexic, and I'm often called in to proof read for him, because he knows he won't spot his own mistakes. Our circular letters to households are generally more mistake-free than the council ones!

He's learned to be wary of spellcheckers and auto correct too. The other day he sent me a text saying we'd been asked to collect 5000 orphans from a beer festival. He meant 'programs', but his phone had auto corrected it for some reason!

As for noticing mistakes, yes, I do, and they do grate, but I've learned to let them pass most of the time. If the meaning is clear, fine. A forum like this is a place to chat, and in spoken chat, we can afford to be relaxed.

In spoken English, I actually quite enjoy some of the variety of usage, it's part of the variety of the country. I think I'd draw a line between people using English casually when they have something to say, and people speaking for the sake of speaking and having to fill in with 'like' and 'innit' and 'know what I mean' just to expand a sentence.

But we can't help making value judgements about people based on their use of language. I sat in a meeting at work on Monday, where we all had to introduce ourselves. Halfway round, one man, who I'd never met before, pointedly introduced himself as Dr X*. Now, it's true, he may have been the only person in the room with a doctorate, but he was certainly the only person who felt the need to use a title, and one intended to impress. My immediate impression was "Oh, you're a pompous little git aren't you?" and by heck, I was proved right!

*Not really X of course, although that might have made him more interesting.
 
Yes, I have identified that as one of the reasons British people limit their knowledge in one (ofter poorly used as well) language. For other cultures, learning foreign languages is just a matter of education (same as a university degree) and not the need to communicate (or the lack of it). I also think that, because English is a quite simple language (in terms of its grammar etc) it makes it really hard to grasp the way more complicated languages (like German, French, Greek, etc) are functioning. I know, for example, how difficult was for my BF to understand that objects have a gender, and that you have to learn their gender by heart in order to speak even to a basic level.. :laugh: Tricky business.. ;)

Personally I found German much easier to lean than English (despite 5 years of extra English lessons every lunch hour and apparently being a native "English" speaker from Scotland), as was French. Harder was Latin and Russian, getting my head around not having the verb "to be" in the present tense made life interesting to say the least (Russian). Now I am learning Spanish and somehow confusing it with Russian at the moment! The only reason I passed English was some bright spark changed the exams from "O-Level" to "GCSE" and with it, the same error repeated was only penalised the once, not each and everytime as with the old exams!

EDIT: corrected a spelling mistake!
 

Mugshot

Cracking a solo.
I don't find myself particularly distracted by poor grammar, spelling or other bits and bobs of that ilk, as has been pointed out by others you're almost certainly setting yourself up for a fall by exposing your own shortcomings.
I do find I grind my teeth when I see the various deliberate misspellings or name changes to imply humour or intellectual superiority though, for example Daily Wail, Daily Fail, farcilities, farcebook, pooptube etc
Just me though I guess, so I'll keep it to myself :whistle:
 

twentysix by twentyfive

Clinging on tightly
Location
Over the Hill
It seems popular now to put question marks at the end of a sentence when it's not really a question. I try to avoid it myself!

Really? (I'm safe as that's not a sentence.)

BTW Spanish uses an upside down question mark at the beginning of a question and a proper one at the end. Anyone know what that is all about?
 

Cyclist33

Guest
Location
Warrington
It seems popular now to put question marks at the end of a sentence when it's not really a question. I try to avoid it myself!

You're clearly doing the right thing?
 

glasgowcyclist

Charming but somewhat feckless
Location
Scotland
BTW Spanish uses an upside down question mark at the beginning of a question and a proper one at the end. Anyone know what that is all about?

The inverted question mark is a very useful tool, it tells you long before the end of a sentence that you're dealing with a question. This isn't always obvious when the sentence doesn't start with an interrogative pronoun.

GC
 

goo_mason

Champion barbed-wire hurdler
Location
Leith, Edinburgh
I was amused by something I read the other week about the importance of the correct use of capitalisation. "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" means something totally different if you make the U and J lower-case!!
 
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