2020 - the year poor spelling turned deadly. pic.twitter.com/2qli1M0IhO— Michael Frost (@michaelfrost6) August 17, 2020
I've been grading papers obviously not first written in English and then run through a cheap translation program back into English. The "tell" was the lines of poetry or prose that came back obviously no longer in the original, but still in English. My favorite was how the "second act" of a play became a "subsequent demonstration." Saw that more than once.
Language is tough; but this sign is why you have to use it correctly.
It reminds me of Denis Norden's invented disorder "literalism" which he hilariously documented in his My Word! monologues. Of course you know I'm a skeptic of the standard spelling of English, even in the far more rational American tradition of Webster. If someone misunderstood what was meant by that sign they probably wouldn't have been able to read it for the misunderstanding or they'd have been a Trumpster.
ReplyDeleteThere is the issue of prescriptive v. descriptive (i.e., what the grammer should be, v. what it is). English grammar was developed in the 18th and 19th centuries by Britains still in love with Rome and therefore Latin. What Latin didn't allow, English did, but if Latin wouldn't allow it, English shouldn't. That kind of thing was still used to torment us all through public school. My first encounter with "my public school education lied to me" was transformational grammar (i.e., Chomsky) in college.
ReplyDeleteThis sign reveals more about the maker than the reader. And I don't assume it was made by a person whose second language is English. Then again, English is a wicked hard language when it comes to spelling.
I got into a bit of a tiff when someone used that old 18th century line about puns being the lowest form of humor. Problem is that better writers than the Augustinian period hacks who came up with that used tons of puns as, in fact, did the Augustine authors though the late 17th-18th century experts apparently didn't know Latin literature well enough to get their puns. The funniest thing, though, was that the guy worships Groucho whose humor was about 98% based on puns.
ReplyDeleteTell 'em puns are the #1 form of humor.
ReplyDeleteAnd nothing's lower than #1.