Why is language quality so bad here?

[leitmotif]

NOTE TO ORIGINAL POSTER just sit back and enjoy us Yanks sparring with each other.

If Google were not available there would be no being out of touch.

So Russ is it safe to conclude
Google IS available therefore you are always out of touch?

Sister Wuzzername would get all wigged out and get her wimple (was it?) all out of whack when we used double negatives.

Dan Bentler

 

[RussB]

 

[Lancie1]

I think I saw this movie...WALL-E!

I have never seen WALL-E. It must have been before my time. These science-fiction themes tend to be repeated in the popular culture about every 20 years, going all the way back to Jules Verne in 1860.

 

[surferb]

Wow - this is hilarious.

 

[ttichy]

Elmohamady,

I understand your concern. The problem has many dimensions. I think the main one is that public school graduates in the US do not know the English grammar rules. Our school system has effectively been funded and controled by the federal regime since about 1980. In that time, from my observations, the knowledge of the typical graduate has fallen to a very low level.

Previously, local school systems were mainly paid for and controled by local school boards elected by the local school parents. They demanded certain standards, and got them. Now the standards have to be relaxed to allow the central government to claim "success" for all. Success in their terms is a failure to me.

Lancie1, do you have some data to support the "federal regime" theory?
I agree with the fact that parents are the main factor in how well the kids perform in school. I also agree that "Local school parents" want their kids to succeed.
But riddle me this: What is the best way to teach a class full of kids to read? What are the *proven* methods? How do you know they are proven and how do you apply them consistently to all the kids. How do you assess which kids are improving and which are not?
tom

 

[dcooper33]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kthxby

I had heard of this site. It's almost like a "Hitchhiker's Guide to Illiteracy". Amazing.

Be warned everyone: this is not a rabbit hole you want to go tumbling into...

 

[jac]

I got this in an email this morning and thought of this "thread".
Cheers!


You think English is easy??


1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture..

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?


Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig..

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?

 

[bernie_carlton]

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..

... and afterward received his 'just deserts'.

One index, 2 indices?

Actually, that is an acceptable plural for index.

 

[Rube]

Whether it's because of "not knowing" or typos or whatever bad writing skills and poor sentence structure is here and, I fear, here to stay. Some folks don't care one way or another. I choose to make every attempt to form my sentences correctly and spell the words I'm writing properly. Since I took the time to write them, I want them to be easily read. This may be conceived as a vanity thing by some but I see it as a suggestion of the underlying character of the author.

When I see posts by some people, who have written their sentences and words poorly, I wonder what else they might do just as poorly. Remember that the words you write here or elsewhere may be the only impression that someone else may get/have of you. I prefer to leave a good impression rather than otherwise. I'm not saying that others don't, mind you, but impressions are hard to change so why make it the option?

 

[uptown47]

Very interesting thread and the OP's point is a good and valid one. I shall endeavour in the future to elucidate more succinctly.

;-)

PS. jac, loved that post about the oddities of English. ;-)

 

[bce123]

PLC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLC
We live in a world of acronyms and I tend to enjoy "decoding" some of the post on this site, but then again I like a good challenge

 

[iant]

the biggest problem with English is
that it is a "FEELING" language.
How you actually say the words - or Emphasize certain words in a phrase changes the meaning of the phrase .
"I didn't say I came from Sydney"
Can be spoken six different ways that has six different meanings.
you make it sound as if you didn't come from Sydney
Or You were surprised as the other person knew you did- as the first two

 

[Jeebs]

Well I've come to the point that when I see a poorly worded post, or one with massive spelling mistakes, I just think the guy selected the US flag cause he liked the colors, not cause he's actually from the US.
If he is from the US, he's got dyslexia.

Any other reason he might have for not being able to write a decent post is just an excuse.

 

[iant]

might be the domain server - don't know

 

[Ken M]

English is a massively redundant (and resilient) language. As we've seen in earlier posts you can strip out punctuation and vowels and still leave something with meaning behind. It also tends to be exchanged between highly sophisticated processors ( in the main! ) capable of error detection and correction based only on context. It's like a protocol where all the start bits, stop bits, parity bits, headers, footers, checksums etc are regarded as entirely optional.

But once you eliminate all these elements the resilience of the language suffers enormously. I could change one character in every word of this sentence by accident and it may still be understood. However if I have already deliberately ignored spelling, grammar and punctuation the chances of accidental errors being understood are very much lower.

There have been several references to the 'so long as it's understood who cares how it's written' point-of-view. This is acceptable, but the only person who can reasonably judge whether a message has been understandable is the receiver. And wasn't this what the original poster was asking for? Surely all he wanted was that the language wasn't already brought to its least redundant and resilient level by the transmitters, leaving him and other receivers with a more difficult task?

(And, Elmohamady, I've no idea how you feel about this multi-page thread you started! I can't wait for a question about a real language that we all agree on, like ladder logic )

Ken