Hi there,
A little bit behind the subject, i take the opportunity to express my
opinion in general on english and at the end a NEW proposal (maybe).
I'm from belgium and as you certainly know we don't have our own
language here. In my country we have FRENCH, FLEMISH and GERMAN.
I speak/write only French, Flemish (equivalent to Dutch) and some
English (it could be worse).
This being said let me comment a few general problems encountered with
english:
- its unbelievable the long time it takes to express my opinions and
put it down on paper. The same way, it takes a long time to find-out
the real meaning of some sentences put forward by people who try to
convince they know very well english subtleties.
The use of commonly used words in simple expressions would be more
efficient and helpful.
- in the future i had some people who ridiculed my spelling and
expressions, but that past time, thanks for your understanding
There is now spell checking, it helps (a lot).
- pithy enough, and i find things smoothly changing, english speaking
people don't do enough effort to try to find-out what's the real
meaning behind the sentences and words expressed. This happens often
during meetings. Just misplace the accentuation point in a word and
there it goes..
A little more interpretation effort to understand the objective of
the text or at least ask for complementary information could be less
frustrating when the author read the reply.
- the last, and the worst. To understand english i have to have at
least 2 big dictionaries of abbreviations generally used. OK EMC
everybody knows but other ones...
Some time ago i worked with the US airforce, how boy that's an
adventure you never forget.
I think it would be wise to have at least once in the original text a
full expression (word) and then its abbreviated equivalent.
Final modest proposal for a solution (maybe):
I suggest to use hieroglyphics in stead of abbreviations, its more
image speaking and universal for everybody but i'm afraid it will
require an extra language on my computer. Hey Mr MicroSoft!
Consider this not as a open criticisms but more as an expression of my
findings during several years of traveling (-/+ 45 times to the us and
15 to canada).
I enjoy to come to the states, a comfortable car and country music
let's me feel like in holiday even if i'm not.
Best regards to all of you Paul
On Sun, 26 Mar 2000 20:53:40 -0500, you wrote:
>
>To all who replied:
> Thanks for the quick and hearty responses!
SORRY LOU, it took me some time....
> I certainly agree that the world does not need another artificial
>language like esperanto.
Just realize, whe strugle here with frensh, english, german, dutch,
spanish, italian, greeks, norsk, and more. Whe don't require an extra
one.
> Some people are better at languages than others, though, and i have
>seen some very good engineers having to really struggle with ours.
See above.
>
> Meanwhile, I have it on excellent authority that the Spanish
>Government is about to simplify the Spanish language, eliminating all the
>accent marks to make an easy, logical language even easier to learn and to use.
>
> Oh well, lets get back to work.
>
>Best Regards,
>Lou
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