151–160 of 576 posts
> I found out that "prepone" was not an actual word in English, based on the dogma that all legitimate words in a language must be found in a dictionary. I disagree. In this case, it was based on the fact that no one you were talking to knew the meaning of the word you'd made up. This is descriptivism at work.
As a non-native speaker, one fascinating phenomenon for me is the flip side to Uncleftish Beholding[1]. Many latinate words are considered more sophisticated, or fancier in general, than germanic words. Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough,…
I hear you! A long time ago I was in the US and I used the word "labyrinth" because I didn't know "maze" and, well, in french for a maze we say "labyrinthe"... I still remember the reaction of my american friend, very surprised by my "advanced" english vocabulary. We native romance language speakers have it easy ; )
But is "labyrinth" from a romance language? It appears in Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon with the remark that it is a foreign word.
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do you feel the same about a regional accent - I mean southerners in the US often feel discriminated against as their accent is used as a shorthand for many negative stereotypes. What regional accent do you have?
My regional accent is midwestern (I'm from Kansas). I don't think I feel quite the same about regional accents, but of course, unconscious bias is a thing.
I did have the experience of one guy thinking I was from Germany after 20 years in the U.S (hence the 99.+ percentile) but he was quite the outlier.
However when Americans meet me in Europe they immediately identify me as having a non-American accent, which really messes with all my European friends since they think of me as being essentially American.
So this disability thing seems quite context dependent.
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I (native English speaker) have noticed this a lot. The example that I remember most vividly is receiving advice while trying to cook food on a barbecue: A Portuguese speaking friend suggested that I "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue". It make perfect sense but sounded incredibly fancy to me. A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education.
That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: > "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue" That would be really formal over here too, the kind of wording that I'd expect in a grilling manual explaining how to use it, but not at a barbecue. I can relate because sometimes I find myself speaking like that when talking to english counterp…
The chap in question was from Portugal. If I understand correctly from your website, you're from Brazil, right? Is there any difference between how that word would be used in Brazilian vs European Portuguese?
As a non-native speaker, one fascinating phenomenon for me is the flip side to Uncleftish Beholding[1]. Many latinate words are considered more sophisticated, or fancier in general, than germanic words. Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough,…
Ahh, here's the book: Classical English Style, by Ward Farnsworth [1].
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There is such a thing as Indian English If there is one phrase that, to me, defines Indian English, I think it would be "do the needful". For American English speakers, I think the first time you hear/see that, it is totally confusing and jarring in an odd way.
Heard this phrase growing up in Ireland also so I think you may be over generalising. A quick search shows Irish origins actually.
I thought the British gave that phrase during colonial times.
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I (native English speaker) have noticed this a lot. The example that I remember most vividly is receiving advice while trying to cook food on a barbecue: A Portuguese speaking friend suggested that I "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue". It make perfect sense but sounded incredibly fancy to me. A native English speaker would never have said that... unless they had received a really expensive education.
That's interesting. I'm a portuguese language native, and I can relate, but not because we talk like this in portuguese: > "move the burgers to the periphery of the barbecue" That would be really formal over here too, the kind of wording that I'd expect in a grilling manual explaining how to use it, but not at a barbecue. I can relate because sometimes I find myself speaking like that when talking to english counterp…
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An Italian friend of mine, when struggling to find the word for a Satellite Dish, called it a parabola. I was very impressed.
I find that particularly amusing because Parabola is exactly how we call satellite dishes here in Italy. It’s technically called Antenna Parabolica but plenty of people simply call it Parabola (at least here up north)
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I emigrated to the US at age five from Germany and learned a lot of my English from Peanuts comics. One of the words I learned from that strip was "incidentally" which I used for years before someone told me about "by the way". I got beat up a lot too.
> I got beat up a lot too As someone born in the 90s I'm always shocked to hear about how culturally accepted it was for children to be physically abused at school in my parents' generation. People talk about getting beaten up at school like it was nothing, like they deserved it for talking funny or liking comic books. It's so normal that the children's shows I grew up with on Nickelodeon / Cartoon Network / etc all…
As a non-native speaker, one fascinating phenomenon for me is the flip side to Uncleftish Beholding[1]. Many latinate words are considered more sophisticated, or fancier in general, than germanic words. Because I'm a native speaker of a Romance language, those are precisely the words that I reach for naturally, because they're familiar. What follows is that, past a certain threshold where your English is good enough,…