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Annoying mistakes in your native language | ||
Tags: Native Language | Error | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5479 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 151 01 July 2009 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Many American English idioms irritate me: "I could care less" being an obvious example.
In my youth, I could not resist correcting people. It was never well received - and often seen as a snobbish insult. I have now accepted that despite my ambitions I cannot change idioms. The only thing I can control is my irritation - and I tried hard to do just that. Usually, alas, without success. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6528 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 10 of 151 01 July 2009 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have one!! "Me & Suzie went to the movies"
The kids I teach say that ALL THE TIME! I'm forever saying "Suzie & I, Suzie & I!!". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Calvino Diglot Groupie Sweden sammafllod.wordpress Joined 5776 days ago 65 posts - 66 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: French, Spanish, German | Message 11 of 151 01 July 2009 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This, I think we can chalk down to the major newspapers firing their proofreaders, which is, in turn, a consequence of falling readership numbers and the resulting economic problems.
...but aren't really mistakes at all, but perfectly acceptable alternate forms. Which have, furthermore, decreased in use since the seventies. Personally, I am a proponent of conservatism in ortographical matters, but not for aesthetic reasons (I could hardly imagine anything more subjective than the aesthetic appeal of an ortography); it simply makes it easier to read old texts and to understand the historical development of the language, thus making a fruitful connection with the tradition easier to uphold.
I (a young person) have found a nice outlet for that urge. In my social circles there's a lot of writing going on, and I simply offer to proofread my friends' works. It gives me opportunity to legitimately criticize their language, and it gives them a nice error-free and stylistically clean text. Win-win. :) Edited by patuco on 01 July 2009 at 3:28pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| furyou_gaijin Senior Member Japan Joined 6196 days ago 540 posts - 631 votes Speaks: Latin* | Message 12 of 151 01 July 2009 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Every occurrence of "definately" should be punishable by death. Edited by furyou_gaijin on 01 July 2009 at 2:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6082 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 14 of 151 01 July 2009 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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At what point is it just colloquial usage and at what point is it a mistake? Sometimes non-standard speech or writing from the past is more revealing and informative than the standard. For example, "mistakes" in Latin inscriptions give useful clues about Vulgar Latin, and less well educated people tend to spell phonetically. In the past, this was often the only clue to pronunciation of their language, in the days before speech recording was possible.
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5648 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 15 of 151 01 July 2009 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It doesn't seriously irritate me, but I think it's a pity that most people no longer use the gender specific words in Swedish, when referring to some professions.
For example, for teacher "Lärare" vs "Lärarinna" and so on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 6825 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 151 01 July 2009 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I couldn't agree more. By the way, this topic was discussed a while back in a thread titled "Pet Peeves". 1 person has voted this message useful |
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