Writing proper English

Well said, Gordon.

I'm certainly not here to take anyone to task for the quality of their English expression.  But, for those who want to make a living, or even just earn some extra money, teaching English, it's well to remember the saying, "you don't get a second chance to make a first impression."  If your written work is the first impression that potential students have of you, then it's worthwhile to make it as correct as possible.

abthree wrote:

Well said, Gordon. I'm certainly not here to take anyone to task for the quality of their English expression.  But, for those who want to make a living, or even just earn some extra money, teaching English, it's well to remember the saying, "you don't get a second chance to make a first impression."  If your written work is the first impression that potential students have of you, then it's worthwhile to make it as correct as possible.

That's a very good point, ab - well worth making.

There, they're, their - Not to worry as things always work out for the best.

On a more serious note, try a name like "English for Cayman business" or whatever sounds suitably patriotic/nationalistic enough for the most hardened right wing ultra nationalists to swallow.

I read the piece with some interest as there are a lot of parallels with the state of government school English over here where we have a president pushing for greater international trade and tourism, but an English curriculum that simply fails to produce English speakers, or even English writers.
However, as a practical Yorkshire chap, I've come up with a system that looks after the vast majority of problems local schools face, but doesn't cover the national curriculum very well. It covers practical English skills and the national exams, but not the curriculum.

A chat on the similarities/differences between the two counties and their issues with the english language would be interesting. I've conducted some serious research into local schools, the curriculum, text books, and all other aspects of English teaching and have some extreme solutions for all their woes and worries.

Any non-English-speaking readers here, need not feel embarrassed if their English isn't up to scratch (so to speak!). There are too many varieties to keep track of - even inside England, never mind in all Britain's former colonies scattered around the world. One day, if I have the patience, I'll write a book about them.

But in the meantime... here's another old (and very short) blog-posts of mine on the topic of accents. It's interesting, if you like that sort of thing.
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2013 … laces.html

Proper English according to whom? British English and American English can be dissimilar in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Australian and New Zealand English almost sound like a foreign language to some of us.

There appear to be no universal set of rules and regulations, not only between different nations, but also between geographic regions within the same nation. I have seen no English textbook wherein "y'all" is a real word, but I have met educators and scholars who use the word on a regular basis.

People in non-English nations who learn English often rely on movies and television, which only muddles the matter further. Learning English online is likely even worse.

Many native speakers of English and Americans make mistakes as well.

Fred wrote:

Many native speakers of English and Americans make mistakes as well.

Many native speakers would fail in a TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language), I was told (in private) by one of the evaluators - that’s why none of them is allowed to attend the test!

IS or ARE allowed to attend?

It is interesting how everyone missed the higher meaning in my post

Khalida.UNC wrote:

Proper English according to whom? British English and American English can be dissimilar in grammar, vocabulary, and ...

Most of Khalida's post deals with spoken English, whereas my focus was on written. So I've blanked out the irrelevant part and am answering only the relevant bit. There really isn't much difference between British and American, in each variety of written English. Some spellings, some punctuation, a few words. Each variety has its "proper" version, and those who use their respective proper versions generally understand the other. I think Khalida may be looking for controversy where it's not warranted.

beppi wrote:

Fred wrote:

Many native speakers of English and Americans make mistakes as well.

Many native speakers would fail in a TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language), I was told (in private) by one of the evaluators - that’s why none of them is allowed to attend the test!

I loathe writing anything serious with a passion, that probably coming from an extremely boring set of English lessons delivered by my extremely boring grammar school English teacher.
Boring commonly equates to ineffective and many English courses are boring so way too many bright students end up with lousy English language skills because the course and/or their teachers were rubbish, not because the student is incapable.
On a personal note, my grammar is generally weak and I left school thinking English literature was pointless tripe, but the truth is very different. It turns out I love classic novels and love Shakespeare even more, that just proving my English teacher of the time was worse than useless, she actually made her subject into something to hate. That's criminal.
I, because I became an accidental DJ, found I had a passion for the spoken word and eventually, after lots of time on stage as an M/C at shows and events, developed ways of engaging an audience, that coming from observing top quality presenters and, just as importantly, watching total dross failing in epic fashion in front of a crowd.
The same applies to the written word - read some total rubbish in order to see other people's mistakes, then use that to develop a prose style that grips your reader.

However, save a few grammar nazis that get really shirty about a misplaced comma or a couple of spelling mistakes, most errors on forums are unimportant.

Gordon Barlow wrote:

There really isn't much difference between British and American, in each variety of written English. Some spellings, some punctuation, a few words.

The punctuation that annoys me most in American English (punctuation-nazi alert, Fred!) is the omission of necessary hyphens. The bad habit has reached many parts of the world - including my home of Grand Cayman, a British colony in the Caribbean. In this "offshore" tax-haven, our newspaper-headlines often have occasion to write of high-tax countries' anti-money-laundering legislation. Almost always they refer to it as "anti-money laundering legislation". Now the referenced legislation is not in fact anti-money, and it is incorrect to claim that it is. I would accept "... anti money-laundering", just, but the writers apparently consider it to be bad English to recognise "anti" as a word in its own right. What they should do - if that's the case - is to write "anti-money-laundering" [legislation]. But two hyphens in the same complex word is reckoned to be far beyond the pale.

So. What does the team think?

That IS often a nit ... but you're right,  and it annoys me, too.   
The use of an apostrophe to indicate a plural, on the other hand, does much more than simply annoy.

abthree wrote:

That IS often a nit ... but you're right,  and it annoys me, too.   
The use of an apostrophe to indicate a plural, on the other hand, does much more than simply annoy.

Agreed. And there's worse: I saw the word "his" written with an apostrophe before the -s- just last week!

Gordon Barlow wrote:

abthree wrote:

That IS often a nit ... but you're right,  and it annoys me, too.   
The use of an apostrophe to indicate a plural, on the other hand, does much more than simply annoy.

Agreed. And there's worse: I saw the word "his" written with an apostrophe before the -s- just last week!

ME - A grammar Nazi?

  I'm sorry, this is just so funny. 

An an English-only speaker, I'm at a disadvantage when confronted with other languages. During my long life - and especially in my youth when I backpacked around the Middle East and Europe - I've been exposed to about thirty foreign languages, and tried my hand at all of them - to no avail. I had my schoolboy French and picked some pidgin German along the way, but anything more than that was pathetically inadequate. I have a Norwegian family now - my son and his three children, and their mothers - but I've not been able to make much headway with them either. Seven years ago I wrote a blog-post bemoaning the fact, and I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't improved at all since then. (The blog-post is at the link below; it explains the situation as it was then.)
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2012 … egian.html

Fortunately, the three grandchildren have learnt English since then, and speak it fluently with me. With their father, they prefer Norwegian and so does he.

Children always prefer to speak language of their mother. That's why we have a word mother tongue and nothing like father tongue.

Jan700 wrote:

Children always prefer to speak language of their mother. That's why we have a word mother tongue and nothing like father tongue.

This is not true: In my experience, kids prefer to speak the language of their surroundings, regardless of the mother.
My daughter lived in Sungapore until 3.5 years old and spoke English well (for her age), plus some Chinese, although we spoke German at home. When we moved to Germany, we switched to English at home, but she quickly picked up German (mostly frim kindergarten) and after a few months refused to speak anything else, although her mother is more comfortable in Chinese and English.
Today, 10 years old, she overcame her aversion to English (since we bought her favourite Harry Potter books only in English) and understands Chinese but does not speak it. Her main language remains German, the father’s tongue, although we never talk with her in it.

I would never say every kid prefers to speak the language of mother. There are certainly exceptions but that is my observation, what I have seen mostly.
Language of the mother is the first one a baby learns. I have been in Germany since about 16 years but I never feel I am loosing my English, once I left Germany and moved back to states for a year and a half in between these 16 years and I felt I am loosing my German. 
Now, if I move to states today, I don't think I could speak German like today after next 16 years.
So, English is like in my blood, and though I can speak good German but it's that strong inside my memory as English. It would certainly start slipping out if I stop practicing it for few years.

Your observations had certainly not been in countries where diversity is a fact.

Both my daughters were born here in Sweden but neither their mother nor father has Swedish as mother (or father for that matter) tongue, although they started to speak in Swedish and as Beppi stated refused to speak in our native language. We always started conversations in whatever the language we wanted them to learn but they always answered in Swedish until we eventually gave it up.

And that's the case with almost every expat parents here regardless of wherever they may have come from and which mother/father tongue they may have. Some of those parents send their children to their birth countries to stay for a while with grandparents to learn the language among other things. 

Yes it must be the surrounding. Surrounding language automatically becomes mother/father tongue.

Gordon Barlow wrote:

I think Khalida may be looking for controversy where it's not warranted.

I assumed you wanted a discussion from more than only a select few on the topic you created. I apologize for my mistake. It will not happen again.

Only a controversial discussion is a discussion.
Thus I hope you will continue it (and also accept Gordon’s standpoint).

Khalida.UNC wrote:

I assumed you wanted a discussion from more than only a select few on the topic you created. I apologize for my mistake. It will not happen again.

Khalida. It's a free world: you can post what you like where you like! I started this thread to focus on written English as opposed to spoken English, because it's the written version that is pretty much standard throughout the world - and it's the version that foreigners have the most trouble with. Spoken English - as you said - varies wildly, with "y'all" and "all y'all" and "you-uns" and "yous" being acceptable in various parts of the world. Here in the Caribbean the word "unna" can indicate "we" or "everybody"; God knows where that comes from: maybe it's not even English at all, but some African language. Sometimes those variants are written, but they're not proper English by any stretch.

Hello guys, it's pretty interesting to read your discussion about writing in English! What do you think, is it worth trying to enhance my writing skills with the help of an online teacher? Online tutoring platforms like https://www.wyzant.com, https://www.etutorworld.com, https://eurekly.com, etc. are getting more and more widespread nowadays but does this method of teaching really work? I suppose my prospective teacher will be able to explain to me the basics of writing in an online conversation, will read my essays sent via email and then comment on them, but maybe I'm wrong and there are some traps and pitfalls on that way…?

HelpyDandy wrote:

Hello guys, it's pretty interesting to read your discussion about writing in English! What do you think, is it worth trying to enhance my writing skills with the help of an online teacher? Online tutoring platforms like https://www.wyzant.com, https://www.etutorworld.com, https://eurekly.com, etc. are getting more and more widespread nowadays but does this method of teaching really work? I suppose my prospective teacher will be able to explain to me the basics of writing in an online conversation, will read my essays sent via email and then comment on them, but maybe I'm wrong and there are some traps and pitfalls on that way…?

Judging by your post, your English is pretty good already. You wrote what I call "casual English" at a high standard, and that's plenty good enough for posts on this website; I'm doing it myself now, as you can see. But I'm guessing that you could write 100% "proper" English if you had to, so I don't really think a formal online-course would do much for you.

The best thing for anybody wanting to write better, would be to quote something and ask what's wrong with it. Or ask what's right with it and why! One or other of your fellow-posters will tell you, and you can argue about it on the thread. How does that sound?

***

These days I have a Polish lodger in my house who speaks very good English, though with a strong accent that takes a bit of getting used to. Her written English is not bad either, but... when called upon to proof-read some of her online writing I generally find she's not quite right with some of the idioms she uses, or with some of the punctuation, or very occasionally with some of the grammar. Does it really matter? Well, when it's on an English-language website, yes it does.

Gordon Barlow wrote:

Does it really matter? Well, when it's on an English-language website, yes it does.

I would be tempted to go with, "Maybe".
As long as the sentences are easily understood, there's little else to worry about. However, a poorly constructed sentence due to weak English skills could lead to misunderstandings.

If the concern is casual chatting with English-speaking people on the boards, then, no, it's not a crucial matter, as long what the writer is trying to say can be understood, and obtain a relevant response.

On the Brazil boards, though, I frequently see posts by people for whom English is clearly a second (or more) language picked up in daily interactions with little or no formal training, who hope to monetize their basic English in some way.  In effectively monolingual Brazil, this is extremely difficult for even an educated native English speaker who isn't also fluent in Portuguese.   Helping these posters to more realistic expectations without disillusioning them is an ongoing challenge.

Fred, you're right of course. Casual and even mistaken English is good enough on forums like this. But usually (or, quite often!) people are keen to improve their written English, not just to get by. That's what I meant when I wrote that it was "important".

Writing proper English can be hard even for a native speaker. If English is your mother tounges, it doesn't mean that you're already a perfect writer. A lot of mistakes(grammar or vocabulary) can be made, and it requires time and effort to make skills perfect. Engish is not my native language, and it's tough for me to write my uni assignment because I used to write everything differently. But if you want to improve something, it can easily be done. For example, when I don't know how to write something at all, I use [link moderated]. They adapt everything to requirements, use extensive vocabulary, correct grammar, and there is no plagiarism in the written paper. Also, the service not only helps to complete tasks but also allows you to see an example of a perfect essay. I think that it's a great way to improve your writing skills.

HelpyDandy: The linguistc quality of your post speaks against the service you are advertising.

Some foreign readers of English - and a lot of native-speakers, I'm sure - have never heard of the word "Mondegreen" (with or without the Capital M), which has to some extent replaced the earlier "malapropism"; the meanings are virtually identical. I once wrote a light-hearted blog-post on the former - although I got side-tracked along the way and didn't actually reach the word itself until three paragraphs from the end. It's an interesting example, though, of how English words sometimes arise.
https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2014 … green.html

beppi wrote:

HelpyDandy: The linguistc quality of your post speaks against the service you are advertising.

It's an essay cheating site so a really bad idea to use, or even have on the forum.

Language can be hard work, especially for us old dudes,even more so if we don;t have a teacher to guide us. However, I muddle along with my Indonesian, usually hoping any Mondegreen that happen along be forgiven.
The big takeaway is READ, READ, READ.
The more you read, the more grammar you pick up, and the more new words you learn.
One big thing out here in sunny Indonesia is people selling goods of whatever sort, the 'veggie man' being a normal site in almost every estate every morning.
These people walk around with their handcarts, that's 2 wheels, a wooden stick to keep the cart level when they stop, and their 2 legs.
That's 5 legs, or kaki lima in Indonesian. I'm commonly asked the English for kaki lima, but could never answer as England no longer has any so there's no word in the language - I was wrong.
A costermonger is a street seller with a cart as described above but the word was lost into the dustbin of obsolete vocabulary when such people disappeared from Britain's streets.
There am I, as you do, reading "My fair lady" the script of the famous film when the word hit my eyes in the same way  Big Ben get smashed into by its large clapper and mallet, almost cracking my eyes in the same way the injury to that big bell occurred.

Returning to the point, READ, READ, READ.

Fred, as always you're an inspiration to us all! I too don't remember encountering the word "costermonger" anywhere except
My Fair Lady" and writings about London's Good Olde Days. And of course your general instruction to READ, READ, READ, applies to those whose native language is English.

So many words go out of fashion - at least in "standard" English! Sometimes those words survive in dialects, or even in families. My Dad (1911-1963) used to use the words "nous" (pronounced "now-ss"), and also "for the nonce", meaning "for the time being". I've rarely encountered that phrase since he died!