The importance of hyphens

One of the more interesting classes that I took in college was by a guy who called himself a linguist. The first thing he wanted us to know was that he was not an English grammar cop. According to him, what people actually speak defines their grammar, rather than grammar defining how they should speak. The rules of spoken language vary from written language. Consider how lawyers write, as opposed to how they speak.

The dominant groups have historically used education as a way to force the dominated to speak/write according to their rules. How you speak identifies your social group, or with education, your dominator's preference.

Savvy politicians shift their spoken language to match the audience they're addressing. But less than perfect usage is easily detected by natives, who find the variance humorous rather than convincing.

The smallest group of people speaking a unique language is two. The example was twins who spoke a language unrelated to anyone around them. They spoke their parent's language to others, but had a separate language with a unique grammar when speaking to each other. Truly a linguist's dream...

So where do I learn Customer Support English? Do multilingual people have less trouble understanding it?

 

I was wondering about the grammar trail. I forgot about my ignore list.

 

Strangely enough, English words are largely derived from Latin, French, German, Indian and a smattering of other tongues. Over time we have adapted the order of verbs and adjectives in our modern language, which is why English spoken as a second language by non-native people can sound awkward to us. But do not despair with the 'mother tongue,' the singular most important feature is the message and NOT the spelling or correct grammar. We all have differing capacities for linguistics and nobody sold be made to feel inferior for not having the literal skills of of a grammar pedant.

 

BTW, I never went to university and don't have a higher education or degree. Although I had an unusually high IQ, I was never an academic and became a very lazy teenage scholar. My entire focus at senior school was football (soccer for the unenlightened) and played whenever and wherever I could, but Grammar School 2nd XI as the best I ever got.

 

Grammar aside, one trend that has emerged that is my personal "finger on chalkboard" reading moment is people that use a very common but similar sounding word for the right word. IE, my vehicle breaks don't work, etc. I see this all the time now and it just makes me cringe when I see it. Very sad.

 

Customer service English:
BBC - Capital - Inside the secret world of accent training

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i'm always confused by: i might of / i might have.

 

Found it. They're called "Homophones."

 

I have encountered many of the far-eastern phone helpers and in most cases it is not completely successful, but a worthy effort nonetheless!

Yay! Congratulations. That's one I can never remember either.

 

Beliefs and ideas also plays a part. Whether it is the parent wanting to teach theirs, or they just want to keep the child exposed to others.

Actually, horrible at pronunciation*. Had to go to a speech therapist for a bit in grade school.

*why does the second o of the base word get dropped here?

 

It's a bit like announce to annunciation, it's sort of abbreviated - which itself is derived from the base word brief.

 

Similarly: mangled expressions. It's very common nowadays to hear (not here ): "I could care less" instead of the more plausible "I couldn't care less".

How about people who get on their high horse when using "a" and "the", pronounce them "ay" and "thee"?

There's a virtual contagion in the last 2~3 years up here, and in the States too I think, this strange emphatic "spin" a lot of people use, coupled with avoidance of shortenings ("it is" instead of "it's", for example). Especially when speaking on the record, to reporters, on the airwaves, and the like. Some examples:

I will be looking into this

There is heavy traffic to contend with this morning

We are aware of this problem

 

The softening of the to thee stems from the need to join a following word with an initial vowel, where the French might use an apostrophe, eg l' enfant or l'homme. On the other hand, it's is the accusation and grammatically speaking the vernacular which is discouraged in any formal writing. However it's perfectly acceptable in social discourse, (I would have said social intercourse, but that might be misconstrued)!

 

There's much confusion when using homophones and plural names:

their, there, they're
it's, its
Adams (surname), Adam's (given name possessive), Adamses (plural surname)
are, our, hour

Spell check disease?



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American Midwest dialect, perhaps?

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What about the "rouge" employee that deleted Trump's Twitter account? The rest of us would have said it was a rogue employee. Skin colo(u)r was not the issue.

 

Typical typo.

 

Here, I really think it is usually not knowing how to spell that word.

 

Scientific communication is in service of a narrow (though arguably important) goal. Its elements are well-enough known to not need repeating. Clarity is paramount and causes much trouble because many words have multiple meanings. Authors distract from their own communication by choosing words that lead readers astray. Another aspect rarely stressed is brevity. I find writings (my own included) to be too long. This is very difficult to correct, and interestingly, much easier when someone else wrote it.

Other forms of communication have a spectrum of goals. They include persuasion when evidence presented is less compelling than for the previous. Strategies are many including some that are a bit deceptive. But in service of goals, there also ought to be attention paid to word choice, structure and grammar. A lot more imagination is involved, or at least so it seems to readers who've not struggled with the craft above.

Brings us to puns, as 'craft' may mean a group of related skills or a vehicle of transport. So it might not be a good science word. I wonder if tight-fitting grammatical garments of science lead to rebound behaviour* when one is off the clock.

 

perhaps the headline was crafted, and not unintentional.