Being a supporter of Open Source Software, reading

slash dot daily

and an avid language freak

I find continuously (tragic error)"thet" a and e seem to be interchangeable, and I only hope to improve communication, myself.

Especially when viewed in journalistic writings using English.

english grammar vowels

Some vowels sound the same as other vowels.

The e seems to be predominant with SA and NZ accent-sounding(just my personal experience) where the word may be spelled with an e or an a, but the correct way to write it is the same in English gramma all over the world.

then, (next) a word that describes concurrent "time",[what came next] This happened then that happened

and

than, which is (objective) "in comparison to" or "in difference to", [this or that] I prefer this than that.

In an attempt to save the English language.....

I am glad to get that off my chest.

Cheers,

regards Glenn

http://glennwaller.blogspot.com/2008...nsence_23.html

My favorite peeves:
then != than
their != they're != there
your != you're
whole != hole
whose != who's

This is not Linux related. Moving to General.

I wonder if the US will ever grasp the importance of education? I am continuously appalled at the engineers with college degrees who cannot write simple English prose.
I simply MUST call the local radio station about the announcer who--several times a day---says: "Do like I do, and ....."

Then there was the LQ member who said that he did not mean to "cast dispersions....."

Should be: I prefer this to that.
Alternatively: I would rather have this than that.

Cool!!! an English shootout.....
Who can have the last word....the Australians, the Americans, or the British??

The British of course, it's our language after all. We don't mind others using it, but don't abuse it.

Ah, if only that were so. This is one of my own pet peeves and I've pointed it out several times in the past. All too often I see posts by people whose location is given as the UK that contain appallingly bad English.

What surprises me the most is that, as Linux users, our command-line syntax must be exact and precise. How can someone that can, presumably, compose complex shell scripts be so careless when typing a written communication? It perplexes me.

It also really makes my skin crawl when so called professional talking heads have no command of the language. A great example is Troy Aikman. For those non-American, non-NFL football fans - Troy was a very gifted Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. Famous for having suffered multiple concussions that eventually forced him from the game. I'm hoping that explains why his favorite word appears to be "what".

And then there are non-native speakers who fail to grasp why words that sound alike are written differently. Why, for example, are 'know' and 'no' pronounced the same and written so differently?? What are all these extra letters doing there, except confuse the non-natives?? There are no rules! Yet you wish us to abide them.


Because of this, deducing spelling from pronunciation is neigh impossible in English. This is unheard off in any other language that I know. I was flabbergasted when my English teacher in high school taught us the English system is so complex, with so many exceptions that it is easier to just memorize the spelling of each and every word. And so I have. No rules! It's like flying blind, without a compass, by memory.

I'm not dissing the English language... but the transition from spoken word to written text is unintuitive, difficult and has a very steep learning curve.

If you, like me, read and write in English a lot but hardly ever speak it, a word like 'basically' is very difficult. So many letters that serve no function whatsoever in the pronunciation of the word. Why isn't it just 'basicly'?? Because that is how you say it.


_____
That said, there is no excuse for improper use of punctuation and capitalization.

Learning proper English is no more difficult that learning BASH or C........

Me and him gone to the principle's office to look for some stationary. By now.....
That's not how I say it...pronounce every syllable: Bay-Sick-Ah-Lee

So their!!!!

Yeah, I agree with you, Greased Lightning, about the confusion that must be induced by spelling and pronunciation. For example, the letters "ough":
Tough: pronounced tuff
Though: pronounced thoh
Thought: pronounced thawt
Bough: pronounced bow

Not sure when standardised spelling was introduced, but at one time, everybody used phonetic spelling.

Yeah, then there are the really weird English words that don't even sound like they're spelled like "colonel", "regime", and "Wednesday".

Something that's always fascinated me is regional accents. Oldham is only about 6 or 7 miles N.E. of Manchester, but the accents are totally different. I have quite a strong Oldham accent, so, phonetically-spelling-wise, I could say, for example: "Thurz nowt ont telly toneet, so ahl go ont th'internet tu write summat on LQ."

neigh ? "the characteristic sounds made by a horse" ???
I can deduce you have no knowledge of the French language where, for example, all of the following words are pronounced the very same way
Oh, ho, o, au, aux, eau, haut, aulx, os ...

I think you mean nigh impossible. Neigh is what a horse says.