Re: [OT] Indian C programmers and "u"

From: CBFalconer (cbfalconer_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/27/03 

Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 06:29:44 GMT

Jeremy Yallop wrote:
> Thomas Stegen wrote:
>
> > People who have english as their second language often have a better
> > grasp of grammar and semantics of words than native speakers (if
> > they have been learning the language for some time). The reason is
> > that native speakers generally know very little outside colloquial
> > meanings of words unless these words happens to have formal meanings
> > in some area the person has some expertise in.
>
> I partly agree, in that (in my experience) non-native speakers often
> know more about supposed rules of English grammar. This is, I think,
> largely due to the inadequacy of the British[0] education system.

IMHO the reason is that the native speaker never needed the rules
- the phrase just 'sounded right' or 'sounded wrong'. This
effect, of course, depends heavily on the parents and family in
general. The same effect causes some non-natives to emit phrases
such as: "To the store I will go", which is correct, but sounds
ridiculous to a native speaker.

>
... snip ...
>
> [0] The language spoken by Americans and others bears only a
> superficial resemblance to English, so they're excluded
> from these comments.

On the contrary, some of the foulest travesties of the English
language have emanated from the British Isles. :-) 

-- 
Chuck F (cbfalconer@yahoo.com) (cbfalconer@worldnet.att.net)
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