Re: Correcting and encouraging non native English speakers

[jlongino]

After reading this thread I felt compelled to share some of my feelings on the topic of language.

American English is my native tongue but it most certainly does not flow easily from my tongue or to my pen/keyboard. I am not a verbal person. What you see in this response is the result of 90 120 150 minutes of composition. I can also state with certainty that every other original post I've made to this site has taken at least that long to compose. The only exception has been ode to strict, which took only 15 minutes, is my favorite and was written when I was half asleep.

Through the course of writing this post I've deleted more than three four times the amount of text that remains. I've read and reread each word/sentence at least five six seven times and am still not completely happy with the wording, style or resulting content. I've fussed about whether or not my paragraphs are formed correctly. I know I've mixed past/present/future tenses somewhere but haven't found it yet. I can't remember a tenth of what I was taught in school about grammar (whatever that is).

Do you think I would even presume to try and correct someone else's use of any language? After reading this post do you think anyone in their right mind would even ask me to?

I have occaisionally wanted to point out the correct spellings of separate or monastery, but somehow I feel more inclined to chalk it up to a simple typo, as we all tend to make when we're in a hurry, and let it go at that.

I could probably keep reworking this for another 2 2.5 hours, but quite frankly, I'm getting bored of it and doing so would probably just make it worse. Bravo to anyone willing to submit a post at all. Perfect "English" or not.

BTW, I ran this through a spell checker four times and only misspelled occasionally. That wasn't a typo though, I always try to add that extra "i" for some reason.

@a=split??,'just lose the ego and get involved!';
for(split??,'afqtw{|~'){print $a[ord($_)-97]}