Till wrote:
> "Bamm Gabriana" wrote in message...
>
>>Hi Till,
>>
>>I am sorry if I offended you from my post.
>>
>>As you can see, I am also not a native English speaker, but
>>if you have seen any of my posts you can tell that I am making
>>an effort to write in a way that is clearly understood by other
>>people in this group.
>>
>>AFAIK, most of the people here are not native speakers
>>too. But we use it because it is the lingua franca of this group.
>>And I can tell that the others are also making an effort to
>>express themselves well.
>>
>>If I can do it, and others can do it, he should at make some
>>effort, don't you think?
>
>
> Well yes, but it just gets out of hand at times, too many people think that
> English is gospel. As it maybe the most spoken language in the world, I
> don't think it's very polite to abuse someone because they don't write it
> well. As far as anyone is concerned, he may be trying his hardest and by
> the fact that he has posted on a predominantly English forum, say's to me
> that he is willing to have a go! I'm sure that when you were learning, you
> would not have appreciated someone taunting you because you made a few
> mistakes!
>
> Cheers Till
>
>
Your comments are well taken, and I apologise if my agreement with Bamm
in response to Lancer seemed somewhat harsh; that was more a sign of my
own frustration than anything.
Between 1988 and 1998, I spent a fair amount of time tutoring students
who were in university-level English courses and were having problems
with their written work. For most of these, English was their second,
third, fourth, &c, language. Few of them already knew an Indo-European
language, which made it that much more difficult.
Never the less, most of them *did* make a conscious effort to try to
express themselves as clearly as possible. Likewise, most of those who
post to these newsgroups also make the effort to express themselves as
clearly as possible.
I have read postings from people whose native language is German,
French, Czech, Russian, even Mandarin, Cantonese, or some other Chinese
language, &c, and it generally isn't that difficult to understand them,
even if their written English isn't that good. In the case of Bamm and
a few others who are not native English speakers, their written English
is even far superior to that of some of the native English speakers who
post here.
My frustration with Lancer is that he *may* have valid points or he may
be way off the mark, but it is impossible to tell from his postings,
since it can be *very* difficult to try to glean any coherent meaning
from what he has written.
I would perhaps have done better to give him the same advice I so often
gave to students I was tutoring and told him to keep his grammar as
simple and straight-forward as possible; unfortunatly, I let my
frustration get the better of me.
Brian
--
We sail tonight for Singapore | We're all as mad as hatters here
I've fallen for a tawny moor | Took off to the land of Nod
Drank with all the Chinamen | Walked the sewers of Paris
I danced along a colored wind | Dangled from a rope of sand
You must say goodbye to me
-- Tom Waits, 'Singapore'
