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Common English Mistakes | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes  Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 33 of 61 09 May 2010 at 8:39am | IP Logged | |||||
No, that's precisely the kind of thing you don't need to learn. Even a five year old native speaker would almost never make that mistake. This is, mind you, before they have attended school. To suggest that some grammarian somewhere had to intervene is a laughable proposition. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Silvance5 Groupie United States Joined 5495 days ago 86 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French | Message 34 of 61 09 May 2010 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
You assume that the child has grown up around people that spoke the language correctly. I've heard 30 year old native speakers conjugate verbs incorrectly. Anyway, I'm sick of having to defend my position on hanging adverbs. It's my belief that they're wrong; let's stop arguing about it. I'll add another common English mistake: the comma splice. I use to make this mistake constantly in my writing, and I still have to watch myself closely when I'm typing to avoid it. EDIT: I also have a question for English speakers: Which is correct, learned or learnt? Spelled or spellt? Edited by Silvance5 on 09 May 2010 at 3:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6440 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 35 of 61 09 May 2010 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
You are also assuming that people have to be thought to speak, that's unlikely at best, take your pick of creoles to ascertain that. By counting "the comma splice" as a common error, it's obvious we are talking about different things. Formal language is always more archaic, conforming to made-up rules. Though, to be honest, I'd rather see two independent clauses joined by a comma that with a dash, which is one of the corrections wiki recommends (I presume that's sourced properly). That's just ridiculous. A semi-colon I've no problem with, but a dash? I have never heard a native speaker ever conjugate a verb incorrectly, occasionally I have heard them conjugate them differently to me, but consistently. A mistake is what I make in foreign languages, a consistent error (relatively) is dialect. It's the exact same question again, whether grammar describes the language spoken or dictates how it should be spoken. If you want to allow a "style guide" dictate how your native language should be spoken, don't let me interfere. My only problem is that you castigate everybody else because they won't do it. As for your other question, I always write learned and spelled, I'm sure I pronounce them as spellt and learnt at times, I don't exactly know when, I think it's when they are unstressed. If you want a more obvious example of what I mean, if you are American, you probably count, "Two thousand five". That is completely wrong in my dialect, it has to be "and five". I don't prescribe or dictate that you should change, to me one is wrong, to an American, the other is wrong. Both of us are right in our dialects. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 36 of 61 09 May 2010 at 9:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ok, let's drop the subject. In regards to your last question, they are both acceptable, -ed endings are more common in American English, whereas the unregularized (or should I say unregularised) -t endings are more common in British English. This applies to a host of other words too: burned vs. burnt, dreamed vs. dreamt, spoiled vs. spoilt, and many more. I'd assume the -t versions are more archaic. I have seen a few British speakers cite these simplifications as evidence of American's laziness and recklessness with the Queen's English—most people thankfully, don't seem to care one way or the other. Edited by egill on 09 May 2010 at 9:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5353 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 37 of 61 10 May 2010 at 2:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, it seems to be chiefly an American versus British English scenario. I am American, but prefer the British spellings, so often when I write for the university, I use the British spellings. One time a professor actually said that she was going to take points off for me doing so, except for the fact that she thought I was European and had learned the Queen's English. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sik0fewl Newbie Canada Joined 5495 days ago 31 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 38 of 61 10 May 2010 at 4:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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Funny how American English still uses "felt", "spent", "bent", etc. and not -ed endings. I guess we can thank Noah Webster for all the inconsistencies... as if English isn't already complicated enough :-).
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| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5353 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 39 of 61 10 May 2010 at 4:48am | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah I personally don't like the man, messing with my language, grr... I think the difference with the words you cited above is that they are pronounced with a "t" at the end, whereas I hear many Americans pronouncing spelled, for instance, with a "d" at the end as opposed to a "t" 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6473 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 40 of 61 10 May 2010 at 6:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wouldn't it be "spelt", not "spellt"? As an American, I always use the -ed forms. "Learnt" and "spelt" sound foreign to me. Some words, like "burnt", can be used either way, but I usually use "burned"... but, for some reason, "burnt toast" sounds better to me than "burned toast" and I can't explain why!
Comma splices annoy me to no end. I wouldn't say they're always wrong (Strunk & White gives a few examples of where they're OK), but they're very often misused. Comma splices tend to make me use the wrong prosody when I read the sentence in my head, and it just feels wrong. Another one that bugs me is what I call the "stupid comma" or "pointless comma", when one is inserted for no reason at all. They most often appear after the subject of a sentence ("Star Trek, is a long-running television series"), before the title of a work ("William Shatner was the star of the series, Star Trek" -- happens especially often when the title starts with the word "the"), and before parentheses ("People often needlessly insert commas before parentheses, (which annoys me to no end).") Occasionally it is correct to put a comma before parentheses, but it's very rare -- only when the parenthetical phrase goes with what follows, not with what precedes. Sadly, Wikipedia is absolutely riddled with all three comma mistakes. I correct them almost every time I see them, but the things just keep popping up. I remember reading the advice of one grammarian bemoaning the misuse of commas, and he said if we simply inserted them whenever we pause in speech, we would use them correctly. I wanted to hit him! Doing that is exactly why they're misused so often. - Kef 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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