tip: don't buy from American eBay sellers using poor English
 

The various eBay auctions I'm looking at lead me to the conclusion: if a seller is in the United States but uses sloppy or broken English, don't risk buying from that seller. It could be someone falsely claiming (in violation of eBay rules) to be within the U.S. My Exhibit A is this auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/3-5-Aluminum-SAT...1%7C240%3A1318 . And I reported at least one idiot claiming to be located in "Hong Kong, United States"--nice try.

I would appreciate not being lectured by anyone on how I shouldn't buy anything at eBay. Sorry, not interested. I find too many good deals and hard-to-find items there, especially when I'm not looking in categories where sellers tend to either sell junk or commit fraud, such as electronics.

Most Americans can't spell or suck at grammar. I'd say go by their feedback before judging their spelling and grammar mistakes.

But yeah, use Craigslist and buy locally with cash. eBay is still a ripoff. I can find most of the things listed on there now for the same price and or cheaper with actual online merchants. The only nice thing about eBay is the really rare items, but then again, I'm trying to always get rid of junk, not accumulate more in my household.

Most Americans (excluding us LQ users of course) probably don't even know where Hong Kong is. I've been there by the way, nice place.


I only bought one thing from EBay, and that was 5 years ago, when I was looking for a 3DO gaming console. I got it, and it worked. Still works too. Maybe now that I have more free time I should dust off that baby and relive the good ol` days of gaming. :p

By the way, most Americans do not speak any English at all! If you go south of the border you'll find that people from the rest of the Americas get quickly offended when the tranlplanted Gringos refer to themselves as 'Americans' -Nostotros tambien somos americanos, lo sabe?

I don't bleed for them, thank you. People who were born south of the border, but live in my neighborhood, fly non-American flags in their yards, and tell us their home is somewhere other than America. Turnabout is fair play.

"I don't bleed for them, thank you." No, they bleed for you... I dare say you'd flaunt your flag if you lived elsewhere -or maybe you wouldn't after all as that is pretty dangerous these days.

I have noticed on LinuxQuestions that there is a distinct difference between the style of English mistakes made by a person speaking English as a second language poorly and an illiterate American.

---------------------
Steve Stites

Absolutely. In other words, sloppy native English is not the same as Engrish or its variants. Engrish is what those questionable eBay auctions use.

Well, I won this dare--you're wrong about me.:D As far as I know, one should fly one's flag in one's own country, and flaunting one's flag in another country is rude. I hate offending people unnecessarily. Also, have you seen the Simpsons episode in which Homer tried to fly the English flag to welcome Lisa's English fiance (disregarding that he failed disastrously)? I approved of that.

Well I have a bad habit on regular basis I buy a text book.
One of those book has as title "Made in America"
Author a American who lives in the UK now
It is about the difference between American English and English UK
American English seems to have a lot of words that has a other language as origin.
So what is sloppy native English

I refer to English spoken by natives of countries whose primary language is English.

Well, english as used in the UK also has thousands of foreign words which are also used in the USA. Many english words as spelled in the USA have the spelling commonly used in England over 200 years ago; for whatever reason the English decided it would be hip to insert a lot of extraneous 'u's into words. I don't know about the 'z' though - did the English purge it or did they never have it? We love it in the USA - it gives words something of a 'zing' - which you must admit sounds better than giving words a 'sing'.

That's what makes English such a rich language, the fact that it's borrowed words from so many languages. And, I hate to admit it, but pinniped is right about the superfluous "u" in a lot of words, not using it makes those words closer to the originals (Latin or Old French?). Not sure how the "s" v "z" thing happened.

As a Chinese with poor English, I feel this thread somewhat racist. What hurts me is not what you said, but what my countryman did. It has always been said that Chinese are not honest, or at least they tend to be not honest. As a Chinese I must say it is true, in some degree. But I still love my countryman. So, that really hurts.

Anyway, you are right. Be careful when you are doing business with Chinese.

OP was talking about people that say they are in USA in their profile and can't spell properly. The OP obviously meant that this might be sign of possible fraud. Don't see anything "racist" here. Read about "Hong-kong, USA" mentioned before.