Teacher Discussion Forums

So when people say 'How do you do' (during formal introductions at whatever social function, assuming you still go to or get invited to any LOL), you reply with something like 'I'm fine, thanks'? :o :lol: 8) :wink: I'm trying to think back if there was a time any British friends ever said that to m...

Maybe somebody somewhere has actually answered 'I'm fine, thanks' to 'How do you do' (in the context of a formal meeting/introduction), but I think it would confuse students if you were to present that answer as anything other than a somewhat inappropriate mistake/faux pas (and then, why would you ...

I have been teaching in Japan for eleven years and love the work but progress is painfully slow and I have used probably every textbook and approach known to man and beast. After a M.Ed(TESOL) I became enthused with some aspects of Systemic Functional Linguistics and have had some interesting and p...

How horrible does the spelling "rediculous" look to you? I keep seeing it so I looked it up and the hits are only fractionally lower than for the "correct spelling". 41 vs 38 million. Time to mark it correct? It looks really ridiculous to me, and I can't say I've ever seen it before. Maybe I just v...

You seem to subscribe to the view that there is something inherently better about the sounds and structure of educated English as opposed to dialect, Hm, not quite. Many educated people write and thus communicate deplorably, and many people without education are brilliant and talented communicators...

I think orthodox linguistic views would be that the ability to communicate well is not dependent on learning "educated" language if you are talking to someone from the same milieu. How would you challenge that? I think it could be challenged, but I fear Jotham will bring his very un-PC notions of i...

Do verbs in English conjugate (have a lot of conjugations)? English certainly has fewer conjugations than Spanish, though some verbs are more fertile ground than others: he is, they are, he was, they were... Even though his own native language has more rules concerning conjugations, which he speaks...

I read an interesting article today entitled Mexico Quietly Helps Emigrants to U.S. Learn Spanish. Though it delves into political issues and ramifications, my curiosity was piqued by underlying linguistic issues. I've always thought that many foreigners don't communicate well in English not because...

Jotham, I am not in error, I am simply providing you with the information that you requested (some thanks would be nice). Nobody here was unaware that retaining the d may in fact be the majority choice by whatever margin in "actual usage" (as sampled from and to whenever), You not only seemed blith...

I still think there are limits here. Would there really be a -d after an emphatic "did": "I tell you, he did used to smoke" That's a very clever argument for the grammarian side. I could be wrong, but I just can't imagine there are many linguists or dictionaries who would really militate for taking...

COCA didn't use to 24 didn't used to 99 BNC didn't use to 17 didn't used to 24 So the spelling with the 'd' is more common even in British English. I guess the M-W has been found in error then, along with Fluffy...again. I wonder why Fluffy chose to quote the M-W concerning evidence instead of the ...

So the American editor is some kind of religious fundamentalist loony who believes he belongs to a superior caste to the rest of mankind! Do you hang out on the streets handing out leaflets like your confessional counterparts. Not any more than a doctor, lawyer, or musician. Would you choose a stra...

Surely Lloyd is saying that prescriptivism is stunting how ordinary people try to express themselves (or rather don't!); that is, that following so-called rules out of some peculiar linguistic insecurity is no way to lead one's writing life (you don't need to be an actual paid, professional writer ...

I thought Garner's quotation of the day today is pretty fitting about the qualitative difference between writers or editors and the rest. Quotation of the Day: "The writing of literate Americans whose primary business is not writing but something else is pretty bad. It is muddy, backward, convoluted...

So describing how the language works doesn't help you make linguistic decisions? It doesn't help me make editing decisions. It's not my job to write like common people do with spelling and punctuation mistakes intact. It's my job to be above that, to write excellently and render the English in docu...