English Language Learners

user116848

17:00

So what changed?

user116848

Or who changed it?

Damkerng T.

ELL. I learned a lot of things from ELL.

user116848

Haha. I see

Anonymous

Maybe because they're so closely related people don't think to categorize them as homophones

Damkerng T.

And from many people here in this chat room, too.

user116848

17:01

Yeah ELL and ELU sites and community is great. Very helpful.

user116848

@snailboat I agree

Anonymous

But it's on e.g. this list, which I just pulled off of Google and don't vouch for

user116848

Let me see....

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't know what sorts of spelling errors are more common among learners than native speakers. The learners I interact with often have better spelling than some native speakers I know

user116848

Yeah, I remember I learned them when I was in school. But forgot altogether :)
Never really put much attention to it. But thanks snailboat pointed it out.

Anonymous

17:05

My feeling is that people vary pretty widely on how good they are at spelling, and that's probably true whether you're a native speaker or not

user116848

Snailboat you native speaker?

Anonymous

Yes.

user116848

I see

Anonymous

Many native speakers are lousy spellers. :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Probably because they had to learn the language by eyes.

user116848

17:06

But I see in fiction especially in movies, characters uses very poor slang English sometimes. Not grammatical even.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Probably because they learned by ears. :)

Anonymous

People do say things that are ungrammatical sometimes. Most often I would characterize dialogue like that as informal, non-standard, or both

Anonymous

I can't comment meaningfully without an example, though.

user116848

Yah

Damkerng T.

I'd say that if we could duplicate exactly the way they speak in movies, we would be quite all right.

user116848

17:09

This is very common in movies: "If I would have blah blah then that would have blah alh" instead of "If I had xyz then that would have xyz"

Anonymous

Neither informal nor non-standard English is "poor" or "incorrect" unless your goal is to use formal or standard English and you're failing to do so

Anonymous

@Arrowfar I can't tell what's supposed to be ungrammatical based on these examples

user116848

@snailboat You know "would have" in both parts in the first sentence

user116848

Its ungrammatical.

Anonymous

I see. Why?

Damkerng T.

17:11

I think it's rare to hear people say "would have" in movies, they usually say 'd've.

user116848

Well it is ungrammatical, right?

user116848

Yeah I wrote the full form

Anonymous

I need a real example to give a judgment

user116848

@snailboat Me?

user116848

Okay. In a bit.

user116848

17:14

Well especially in oldies golies Clint Eastwood type films. And street thugs kind of language you know. They don't know grammar and sh*t

user116848

:)

Anonymous

As I said before, I would probably not disparage their language or call it ungrammatical, and would instead call it non-standard or informal, but I can't make that judgment without an actual example

user116848

I can't google search it either. No sentence is making any sense.

user116848

Yeah informal may be. I agree. But still very slang type English it is.

Anonymous

Pullum wrote an essay called African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with mistakes

Damkerng T.

17:19

I'm still wondering about which movie we're talking about.

(I'm not a big fan of his, but it shouldn't be that bad.)

user116848

Damks there are many. Try to notice it next time you watch any street thugs type movie,

Damkerng T.

Have you ever seen Gran Torino?

Nico

@Arrowfar This answer may be relevant (see point 262).

user116848

@Nico Hi. Where?

Nico

4

A: makes you wish he *would* have written

This makes you wish the author would have written several advanced sequels to this amazing book. You are right that "I wish he had written ..." is preferred. However, in informal speech, "I wish he'd have written ..." and its variants, "I wish he had have written ..." and "I wish he would h...

Anonymous

17:22

Phew, for a moment I was afraid you were going to link to an answer that made 262 points :-)

Nico

@snailboat Is there such a beast? This is not stackoverflow!

Anonymous

@Nico You'd run out of space before you got to #262.

Anonymous

Unless your points were very short!

user116848

@Nico Yeah that's exactly what I was referring to. Thanks.

user116848

So how come it's in the educated people's speech?

user116848

17:27

It's not berry berry educated, now is it? :)

Anonymous

The would version seems fine to me. The had version, formed by reanalyzing the clitic form 'd, seems off.

Anonymous

In either case it's informal

Anonymous

Why berry?

user116848

It was a joke. "very"

Anonymous

I understand. Why?

user116848

17:29

You messing with me? haha

Damkerng T.

I think it's unlikely to find "You messing" or "You messing with me" in any movies.

user116848

You guys are messing with me now. I see.

user116848

:)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. The latter is fine

Anonymous

"~~Are~~ you messing with me?"

Anonymous

17:31

It's an example of what I've seen John Lawler refer to as Conversational Deletion

Anonymous

With the usual John Lawler Capitalization™

Nico

@snailboat I don't get it :(

Anonymous

@Arrowfar It was a serious question

Damkerng T.

I just think that it's pretty hard to find one. (I'm searching for it right now.)

Anonymous

@Nico Answers can only be 30k characters in length.

user116848

17:32

@snailboat I didn't get your question?

Anonymous

Well, it comes across as eye dialect of a particular type of mock accent

Nico

The penny dropped now. Thx!

user116848

@snailboat I was referring to your word play earlier! God! you are something.

user116848

:)

user116848

Do I explain my above statement too. :D

Anonymous

17:34

Oh, mine was different.

Nico

b/v are not homophones!

Anonymous

That's right.

user116848

@snailboat How was it different?

Anonymous

Anyway, some people might consider the berry eye dialect offensive―I wanted to let you know if you didn't already

Anonymous

So I asked.

Anonymous

17:35

@Arrowfar You changed the pronunciation.

user116848

What's berry dialect?

user116848

Never heard of it.

user116848

Oh, so you thought.........I see.

Damkerng T.

It's strange that I think "You messing with me?" might be possible, but as I suspected, it's really hard to find. I couldn't find it in any movie scripts I tried.

user116848

Try "You kidding me"

Damkerng T.

17:37

Maybe the scriptwriters are too shy to write it without "Are".

user116848

That's common enough.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Seems fine to me.

Damkerng T.

Nope. It's still not very common. Though I found some.

Anonymous

More than might be possible, in my mind :-)

Anonymous

Are might be written and not said.

Damkerng T.

17:39

That's exactly what I'm thinking.

Anonymous

A lot of the time, when I entirely delete words like that, I still feel like I'm sort of saying them

Anonymous

Even though in fact they get entirely left out! Psychologically, they're there

Nico

►

Anonymous

Like, it'd be easy to convince myself I'm still saying it a little bit when I'm not :-)

Damkerng T.

So the script might have been written "Are you kidding me?", and the actor might actually have said "Are you kidding me?" but the "Are" was so unstressed that it could barely be heard.

user116848

17:40

@snailboat I searched the internet. People don't find "berry" offensive. Where did you hear?

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Oh, well done.

user116848

@snailboat So mine was a serious question just now?

Anonymous

@Arrowfar Sure, but you pre-empted any answer I'd give by saying people don't find it offensive

user116848

May be I shouldn't make smileys so often. People don't take me very seriously then I guess.

Nico

I might regret this, but here it goes:

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=berry

user116848

17:44

No I wouldn't. Go ahead. Shoot.

Anonymous

@Nico Hah, I've never heard that one before

Damkerng T.

@Nico Thanks for the clip.

Nico

Who would've imagined it has so many meanings!

user116848

Urban dictionary is very naughty.

Damkerng T.

Taxi Driver (1976). Hmm...

Anonymous

17:46

@DamkerngT. It's a classic. I think. I mean, I've never seen that movie.

Anonymous

But I've heard it quoted countless times, so it must be a classic, right? :-)

Damkerng T.

Robert De Niro looks very young! :)

Nico

I'd call it a classic.

user116848

Yeah I watched it. A psycho's story.

user116848

Robert De Niro

user116848

17:47

Cool film

Nico

@DamkerngT. Check out Jodie Foster then!

user116848

She's is hot

Damkerng T.

In that film?

user116848

"was" I mean

user116848

Yeah

Nico

17:48

Yes, she's a teenager in that movie

user116848

Yeah now she's not that hottie

user116848

She comes in mommy roles now

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Did they change the way they write movie scripts?

Nico

In that movie she's a child prostitute. I'd say "hot" wouldn't be the most appropriate adjective in this case.

Damkerng T.

Taxi Driver (1976), Scarface (1983) -- I found are dropping in these two movies. -- I mean in the scripts, not on the screens.

user116848

17:51

An attractive girl

Nico

I think "attractive" still conveys a sexual connotation

user116848

So? I think it depends on your mindset

Nico

oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/…

user116848

@Nico You a guy? or a gal? If you don't mind me asking.

Nico

A guy; does it matter?

user116848

17:54

Just asking. So "beautiful"? That?

user116848

That doesn't convey sexual xyz

Nico

I think beautiful could do.

user116848

Yay!

Nico

OK... lads and lasses, this gent is going to make like a tree and leave!

Anonymous

@Nico Hee. Make like a tree, and get outta here! :-)

user116848

17:57

Well I like Cape Fear too. From 1995. Again a psycho's story.

Damkerng T.

Have a nice evening!

user116848

Bye

user116848

And American Psycho.

user116848

I am gonna be afk too. Bye bye.

Damkerng T.

Bye!

Hmm... It looks like it's hard to find bad sentences in more recent movies. (Bad is probably not exactly the right word.)

Anonymous

18:01

Uh-huh? What qualifies as 'bad'?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Something that could look like an ungrammatical sentence.

Someone might've complained, hence the change. I mean it's possible.

Anonymous

Movies are probably mostly pretty good re: grammar, but you'll find non-standard dialects, deliberate wordplay, and so on

Anonymous

I searched for movie grammar and found this blog post peeving mostly about punctuation: entertainment.time.com/2013/05/24/…

Anonymous

Very exciting.

Damkerng T.

One good thing about Hollywood scripts is they seem to try to make it as real as they can.

@snailboat Wait, punctuation! In movies!

Anonymous

18:08

Movie titles.

Anonymous

I thought I'd be able to find people grumbling about grammar in movies, but instead I found this. :-)

Damkerng T.

> Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

This one is interesting...

since the past tense of shrink is either shrank or shrunk. :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, in actual usage yes, but prescriptively shrank is the correct choice

oerkelens

Well, then we can throw in Star Trek the series as well:

to boldly go where no man has gone before

Anonymous

Ahh, another peeve.

oerkelens

18:13

Prescriptively bad :)

Damkerng T.

I love that line!

Anonymous

Most prescriptive accounts, I think, allow for split infinitives these days

Anonymous

Of course, "prescriptively" isn't a coherent thing that everyone agrees on.

oerkelens

The ones that don't do not deserve authority

There never was any good reason not to allow it.

Except "at some point, thousands of years ago, some people living far away from here who spoke a completely different language, did not split their infinitives. Therefore, neither shalt thou do so."

Anonymous

Well, we don't split infinitives in English, either.

Anonymous

18:15

To isn't part of the infinitive form of a verb. It's a separate word.

Anonymous

So there's nothing to split.

Anonymous

The mistake would be considering to go a single word form.

oerkelens

Well, opinions seem to differ on that. I have been taught by several teachers in several countries that a full infinitive consists of [to]+[verb]

Although I am very happily abandoning a lot of the "rules" I was taught :)

Anonymous

@oerkelens Sure. People can say whatever they want. But can you come up with any evidence that would bring you to the conclusion that it's actually a single word?

Anonymous

Probably not.

Damkerng T.

18:25

Sometimes, it's just like, "people follow grammar" vs. "grammar follows people".

Anonymous

So far the only evidence you've presented (you can stick words in the middle) is rather decidedly against it

Anonymous

Other arguments include: to can appear on its own without a following infinitive, the infinitive can appear on its own without a preceding to, a phonological juncture can be inserted between the two

Anonymous

And there's evidence from e.g. coordination

user116848

I don't get this line's grammar: "Who knows? We might've been different people. We might've been happy". Why not "we might be"? Here is the script script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/c/…

user116848

Because talking about "now", right? So why not "would be" or "might be" ?

Damkerng T.

18:30

might've been is used when it is not (whatever they wish for).

user116848

I watched this movie a long time ago. Just remembered this line, so I asked.

Anonymous

To me, it sounds like it's talking about the period of time beginning with the betrayal continuing forward to the present

user116848

So if I say "Who knows? We would be different people. We would be happy"

user116848

That would be correct too? Yes?

Anonymous

You appear to be contradicting yourself

Anonymous

18:33

"Who knows" = I don't know. "We would be happy" = I am fairly certain.

user116848

So "who knows" must follow "might have been" type structure?

oerkelens

@snailboat I am most decidedly not going to defend a fallacy I would much rather see confined to the depths of hell than endlessly repeated for the supposed benefit of generations of unsuspecting learners! Please do not confuse my mere observation with a willingness to defend any such phenomenon!

Anonymous

@Arrowfar "Who knows?" indicates uncertainty. It is strange to follow it with a statement of relative certainty

user116848

I see

Anonymous

Might seems okay. Would seems less okay.

user116848

18:37

Now it makes sense. After all those years. I always thought it was a bad grammar.

user116848

I am bookmarking your answer. :)

Anonymous

It's common to talk about what might have been, if only someone had made a different decision, if only things had been different

Damkerng T.

would have been is possible, though.

user116848

hmm

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Sure, the only reason would have been is strange in the example above is because it contradicts what was just said

Damkerng T.

18:41

I haven't read the script.

Hmm... Come to think of it. "Who knows?" is probably enough.

user116848

I guess Snailboat means "Who knows"

Damkerng T.

nods -- I guess "if only someone had made a different decision" distracted me a bit.

enjoying ginger...

user116848

Here different decision means ------) The attorney that sent the psychopath to jail blah blah.

user116848

You can eat raw ginger? Damks?

user116848

I put it in the green tea often.

Damkerng T.

18:45

I guess I can, but what I have is cooked.

user116848

Ginger + Green Tea + honey + garlic + lemon

user116848

Very tasty. And healthy.

user116848

You guys should try it sometime. :)

Damkerng T.

I like ginger. It keeps me awake.

user116848

Cooked ginger? I can't seem to get the idea, how?

Damkerng T.

18:47

Sliced. Then add some pork, and cook them together.

I'm not very good at culinary vocabulary.

Oh, it's called black mushroom or ear mushroom. I added that into the dish too.

user116848

I see

Damkerng T.

A-ha! This technique is called stir fry. (I was reluctant to call it fry 'cause I knew that it wasn't.)

So basically, what I have is "stir fried ginger with sliced pork and ear mushroom". :)

user116848

Seems tasty

Damkerng T.

Hee. :)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I love to stir fry.

Damkerng T.

18:54

Yay!

Anonymous

A related word is sauté

user116848

@snailboat You wrote saute with accent mark, with "Auto hot keys software"? or how?

Anonymous

@Arrowfar I use a Japanese input method, and I've added some non-Japanese things to the input dictionary so that I can type them more easily

user116848

Is it available on the net?

Damkerng T.

Ahh... sauté looks like a hybrid of stir fry and Chinese technique for making the golden fried rice!

I usually use a wok.

Anonymous

18:57

If I didn't use Japanese input, I'd use a compose key: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key

Damkerng T.

Oh, you probably already know what golden fried rice is.

It looks so simple, but it requires a master skill to do it right.

user8153

22:36

@StoneyB Hello?

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