Job Discussion Forums

[4nic8r]

Teacher Lindsay..

You need to relax. The next time I need advice from you about pen names, I'll ask for it. Does a pen name reflect a person's personality? If that's the case, the I'm sure a lot of people would have a lot of fun changing your name.

I could care less about making sure I have "proper spelling, grammer and punctuation marks" on an internet message board. I'm not getting a grade for this so why would I waste my time... just to please you?

Why don't you stop wasting people's time with points about someone who didn't use a capital letter, and contribute something normal for a change.

[Roger]

What can you ask Chinese (Japanese? Thai? Korean?) students if they must first rehearse and drill both the question and its answer?
It is my experience that every question one asks them seems to prompt them into answering it in a pre-rehearsed way. Questions they have never heard before they cannot answer!

[Teacher Lindsay]

4nic8r

[4nic8r]

Teacher Lindsay wrote: :

4nic8r (can I call you f*cker for short?), here's a new word for your vocabulary:-

banter - be silly or tease one another.


So this is your idea of banter?

[Ludwig]

[Ludwig]

[Teacher Lindsay]

4nic8r

YOU chose that pen name!

Is f*cker not a synonym?

Incidentally, do you actually know what the word means?

fornicator - Someone who commits adultery

It comes from the Latin word fornix, which means brothel.

Cheers

[waxwing]

[Teacher Lindsay]

waxwing wrote:-

[johnslat]

Dear Teacher_Lindsay,
For your piece of mind, let me say that, by in large, most posters here use correct English, albeit there are a few who make mistakes once and a while.
Regards,
Jhon

[4nic8r]

Taken from May 25, 2004 "Does Anyone Know Whether Capergirl Has Ever.."

Teacher Lindsay Wrote:

Ludwig

Are all of your posts error-free?

--------------------------------

TL,

So, you've also be known to make mistakes on here. Yet, you call everyone else on theirs. Interesting.

Thanks for clarifying the words for me, Webster. I guess you are the all-mighty authority for language on this board.

You must not like a lot of music or movies, where they speak slang do you? Do you send emails to critique movie screen writers also?

As for the pen name, mine is written a certain way for a reason. It's a friend of mine's vanity plates on his car.

I have no interest in having a war of words with you. I did however, get a laugh at your battle with Ludwig on the China board.


as for Ludwig..

Does everything have to be so grammatically correct on this board? Must be a lot of fun having conversations with you when you correct everyone all the time.

FYI..

Forum name: Job discussion

If I want a grammar discussion, I'll join the grammar discussion forum.

Troll elsewhere fugazy..

[Ludwig]

It is not at all clear what you mean by 'grammar', nor by 'correct'. I was trained initially in 'transformational generative linguistics' ('Chomskyan universal generative grammar') and 'context free grammars' (in fact, I was trained in 'the Chomsky hierarchy') so, if you know of anything of those approaches, then you will be aware that I would never dream of being prescriptive.

What is important is the grammar (an instance of a complex dynamic self-organised system) of the speech community in question. In my particular dialect of SA English, for example, it is quite legitimate to state, 'Your car wants washing', though I know this is as painful to the ear of some speakers of other dialects of English as the US 'Did you go to Spain yet' is to mine. (I can only say 'Did you go to Spain', or 'Have you been to Spain yet'. In my dialect, the semantics of 'yet' clash with those created by the past simple). My experiences have shown me that the same holds for speakers of British English.

However, to native speakers of English - of all speech communities that I know of and have studied - there exists a somewhat distinct grammatical difference between 'could' and 'could not', and, roughly, is one of negation.

If there is a speech community that uses 'could' to 'mean' (much more could be said here) 'could not' (this is a lay and superficial gloss; to many linguists, such a 'could' would merely be a homophone of the better known 'could') than that is fine, but its use would not be appropriate in any other speech community (not, at least, if your intent was incremental communication).

I could refer to 'robots' if I wanted, but I could not then complain if no one else thought I was referring to (what in British English are termed) 'traffic lights' (which are called 'robots' in SA English).

I often correct and assist non-native speakers when I can not extract meaning from their utterances, yes. I have always found it ultimately facilitates communication.

Besides, once a grammar is up and running, some aspects can never have variants. A good example of this is the 'going to' contraction (i.e., 'gonna'). No speech community can contract 'going to' into 'gonna' in the examples below (even if they do 'not know grammar'):

I'm going to China.

* I'm gonna China.

I have noticed many interesting problems with your English, though most would be very complicated to explain outside of a linguistic vocabulary. To simplify, and to experiment, could you briefly state what to you are the greatest differences in interpretation between the following two sentences, despite their having a seemingly identical surface syntactic structure:

The teacher is eager to please.

The teacher is easy to please.

[4nic8r]

Ludwig,

I can understand where you are coming from now. You explained your position clearly, and without snide remarks. (Some critical yes, but there's nothing wrong with constructive criticism)

However, I wonder your opinion on this:

All of us on this board have grown up around the world, and have been educated differently. Some had access to higher forms of education than others. The people who you grew up with and the way in which you were brought up can influence your language tastes. Dialects and slang in all countries, even cities are different. ('Cheers' for example) Spelling and grammar are different in countries. Maybe what is normal to write in England, might not be the norm in Australia. Same goes for Canada and America. (You gave your examples with 'yet') I agree there is a universal English, but in many cases there are exceptions. What I have written, admittedly with grammatical mistakes, should be comprehendible to everyone on this board. There are words/expressions that British people use that I have no idea what they mean. Have you studied about AAVE? Though it is English, can you understand everything they are saying? The LSA states that characterizations of AAVE as 'broken English' or 'ungrammatical' are incorrect and demeaning.

Point is, you have your way of interpreting things, others have theirs. A message board, such as this one, should be used for the exchange of ideas and not the criticisms of how people choose to express themselves. If this was the case people who use abbreviations, or slang, would all be subject to the 'language police.'

I have a follow up question (unrelated), but I'll wait to see what your opinion is first.

Cheers.

[biffinbridge]

Whata pointless thread....get out more.I agree with the Guest of Japan.

[Ludwig]