This not that
- Thread starter The Mirrorball Man
- Start date
It's wierd.were, where, we're, ware, weir, wear - seen all of these interchanged/used in place of each other at one time or another.English language? Pah.
"Could have gone", not "Could have went".
"Could have done", not "Could have did."
"I have this" or "I've got this" is preferable to "I got this".
"I saw" or "I've seen", not "I seen".
"To all intents and purposes", not "To all intensive purposes".
"Could have done", not "Could have did."
"I have this" or "I've got this" is preferable to "I got this".
"I saw" or "I've seen", not "I seen".
"To all intents and purposes", not "To all intensive purposes".
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Yet, the use of "I got this" would imho be legitimate if you wanted to express that you understood something / got the gist of what was said.
No, not really.
I studied English as a foreign language, so obviously I was not especially proficient at first: when I went online to improve my skill, sometimes it was really difficult for me to understand what people were saying ("Your wrong"... "your" what? "There right"... uh??). It was especially confusing for me because, to my ear, "your" and "you're"; "their", "there" and "they're" are not really homophones: they sound slightly different, so mixing them up is more or less unthinkable for me (even if, due to the exposure, sometime I do!).
So, given that a whole lot of readers on the Internet are not native speakers, by making these mistakes your are confusing half of your readers (and embarrassing the other half).
I see your point, native speakers no doubt have an advantage in most languages, over those who study it as another language.
But as with anything some people are better at spelling than others, so yes sometimes the wrong spelling of a word is used but so long as you can more or less understand what they are saying it's not a massive problem.
Using the wrong spelling "sometimes" is not what we are talking here. Typos are bound to happen: that's not the point. Also, languages evolve, it's a fact, so you won't catch me complaining about the changes of grammar and words usage. We are talking about the systematic mangling of language, to the point of making it difficult to understand.
It might not be "a massive problem", but it's still using your languages badly, it makes life more difficult to a lot of people, and it makes people look like uneducated fools. So why not correct it?
Maybe, maybe not. Some people have poor maths skills does that make them uneducated or just bad at maths?
True. Ultimately, good spelling and grammar is just good manners.
Don't ask me, anyone who can't do integrals is barely human in my opinion.
For what it's worth, to my ears, there and they're sound different (although their and there do not). But, to my ears, our and hour sound nothing alike while our and are do.
Nothing that is written differently could ever sound similar to my ears.
Good languages don't allow for homophones.
Good languages don't allow for homophones.
I knew you were going to find them.
However, if you pronounce them with the historically correct Tuscan accent, the "h" have a little aspiration.
(That's actually a lie. But you can repeat it and most people, even Italians, will believe it.)
However, if you pronounce them with the historically correct Tuscan accent, the "h" have a little aspiration.
(That's actually a lie. But you can repeat it and most people, even Italians, will believe it.)
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I was trying to think of something with an h in it. Hanno and Anno would be an example (and, no, I don't pronounce the h). It's obviously completely different by context and it happens rarely enough to remember when it happens.
Joking aside, similar to English, mixing up the homophones like a/ha, o/ho, anno/hanno, is the most regular mistake I see in Italian (both by foreign and native speakers). Others are the use of the wrong diacritical sign (accent) and the misplacement of apostrophes.
Thankfully, in Italian there is virtually no distinction between spelling and pronunciation, so that's a huge help in getting it right.
Thankfully, in Italian there is virtually no distinction between spelling and pronunciation, so that's a huge help in getting it right.
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