Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

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jayles

Member Since

August 12, 2010

Total number of comments

748

Total number of votes received

228

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Latest Comments

“Anglish”

  • August 22, 2011, 6:30pm

Wanted: teacher with minimum ten years' industry ordeal..
Wanted: teacher with at least ten years' craft skill
Wanted: teacher with more than ten years' wisdo

“Anglish”

  • August 21, 2011, 8:50pm

AnWulf: yes Orwell was right. The real question is what to do about it - how to reverse the process. While we tinker here, the rest of the world carries on without us. We may
encourage 1) simpler language in business; 2) children to learn Dutch in school; 3) target the most common latinate words first. Against this, we would need to recognise a) that there is now so much global academic, medical, and technical jargon from latin, it would be hard to shift, and 2) we would need to have ready answers for the gaps, that is, those holes left when we take out common latinate words like "experience".
Nearest standin would be "fare"
For instance: "So how did you fare?" "a well-fared man"
However what about the muddling with "airfare" "affair" "unfair" "market/fair" ???
Or should we take in "experience" as it has become a verb too in English, and as a countable noun means "happening" and uncountably means, well, er, "Erfarhrung" which is where the hole is.
In short no good putting forward getting rid of latinate borrowings if we cannot come up with good well-understood standins; and by well-understood I mean understood by someone who hasn't studied OE first.

“Anglish”

  • August 21, 2011, 4:07pm

There! and I thought electricity was named in honor of some Greek princess who helped kill her own mother in an electrifying tale of incest and insecticide....

“Anglish”

  • August 20, 2011, 12:01am

And I'm open to your input

“Anglish”

  • August 19, 2011, 10:59pm

If I may put an idea forward.....

“Anglish”

  • August 19, 2011, 5:10pm

AnWulf: I'm with you; the "should" version sounds odd to me despite my Brit childhood.
I love the subjunctive version; it sounds so beautiful to me; but then I love subjunctives in Hungarian, French and German too...
The "past" simple tense in English is identical to past subjunctive (except for "if I were you"), so it either betokens a real event in the past OR an unreal event. Compare:
1) If I have time I will call you. > real ; present/future
2) If I had time I would call you > well it's not going to happen so unreal present/future
3) If I had had time I would have called your > didn't happen > unreal past
so in (2) and (3) "had" and "would" are "subjunctive" betokening a non-event.
That's how I teach it.... because we can then go on to:
"I wish I had time to call you" > but I don't so again "had" (subjunctive" is used
"If only I had time to call you" > same story.
I teach it this way because it makes consistent cohesive sense, whether or not it is etymologically true or not.
"O je, wenn ich nur die Zeit haette, Dich anzurufen"
"Azt ajanlom, hogy idejojjon!"
Bugger the french,,,,

“Anglish”

  • August 18, 2011, 9:57pm

AnWulf: yes - the tricky bit is why "What are you doing this weekend?" asks about plans; and why "What will you do this weekend?" doesn't - it is either rhetorical or awfulizes the outlook.
My vote would be to get rid of "I'm going to" ; it is longwinded (periphrastic) and unneeded in Anglish.

“Anglish”

  • August 17, 2011, 9:21pm

Today I watched someone trying to explain the difference between
a) I will come with you
b) I am coming with you
c) I am going to come with you
and I thought how buggered English has become. Bit hard to tidy it all up though.

“Anglish”

  • August 17, 2011, 9:16pm

Ængelfolc: from www.thefreedictionary.com/curious:
"curious, inquisitive, snoopy, nosy
These adjectives apply to persons who show a marked desire for information or knowledge. Curious most often implies an avid desire to know or learn, though it can suggest prying: A curious child is a teacher's delight. A curious neighbor can be a nuisance.
Inquisitive frequently suggests excessive curiosity and the asking of many questions: "Remember, no revolvers. The police are, I believe, proverbially inquisitive" (Lord Dunsany).
Snoopy suggests underhanded prying: The snoopy hotel detective spied on guests in the lobby.
Nosy implies impertinent curiosity likened to that of an animal using its nose to examine or probe: My nosy colleague went through my mail."
Words are rarely complete synonyms in English; they may overlap to a small or large extent in meaning but are often separated in terms of formality (see second post on this thread), usage, or collocations (ie usual words that go with them eg eine Entscheidung treffen cf make a decision, not "do" or "hit"). This is one of the hurdles for Anglish; real English words have different nuances or just sound rustic to the modern ear; maybe this can be changed over time, we shall see.

“Anglish”

  • August 16, 2011, 1:59am

Ængelfolc: well done for picking up on my oh so English remark about not being dogmatic! In my world we promote special dictionaries like Longmans Advanced Learners' which show word frequencies and indicate Br and Am usage and specify the most common meanings first. I consider them far far superior to old fashioned dictionaries which just explain one word with another eg obgleich = obwohl. One really needs to know that/if obgleich is slightly more quaint or unusual. (?? Just off the cuff!).
Not worth arguing over your sources but to me "snoopy" smacks of Murdoch's apparatchiki hacking into your mobile phone messages; it goes far beyond innocent curiousity and good taste; but who knows? someone somewhere may have used it like that.
mfG