--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The bottom line of language misuse, in my opinion, > is what we've seen here recently. Someone makes > a mistake, one that they've been making for a > long time, someone else corrects it, and the first > person, rather than wising up and *learning a little > something*, claims that they misspelled the word or > used the improper grammar on purpose "for effect."
For the record, I may be a little sensitive to this issue right now because I'm a stranger in a strange land, trying to learn Spanish as an absolute beginner in that language. If no one ever *corrected* my stupid mistakes (and boy! do I make a lot of them), I'd never learn that they *are* mistakes, and how to use the words or phrases or idioms properly. One of the things I liked most about France was that most of the people I encountered there, when I'd make a mistake like using the wrong gender for a noun, would gently repeat the phrase or words I'd just misused to me, but using them properly, correcting the mistake as they repeated them. This wasn't done in any kind of putdown way...it was more like the person was pretending to repeat what I'd said to verify that they'd heard it correctly, but *at the same time*, correcting my grammar, very gently. I learned a great deal from people that way, and continue to do so here in Spain, where the same technique seems to be employed on a regular basis. I think it's a very neat form of social etiquette, a gentle form of teaching and of *helping* us newcomers learn the language. Those who aren't interested in learning the language probably don't even notice that it's going on -- they probably think that all these people repeating what they've said to them are hard of hearing. :-)
