I agree with, my girl, dassgrrl, Yi-bai-fen on this one.
Why is the vernacular so irritating or disturbing to some people?
I recently re-read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn. I wonder if early Internet Forum users on the banks of the Mississippi, circa 1870, decried the English of the voices that Twain gave to his characters?
Sure, there is a time and place for “proper English”, but beyond that there’s just a colorful ever changing sea of irregularity. Why question that? Afterall, this is how we came from “Romeo, oh Romeo wherefore art thou?” to “Yo, 'Meo where you be?” or “Oiy, Romeo, where ya hidding at?” or “Romeo where r u?” The Language changes.
On thing that get’s on my tits is the use of “ALREADY” in the form of sentences like this:
"Start the car already." - when the car is just about to be started or you asking somebody to start it, or "Phone your friend already" when you are urging someone to call their friend.
I just can’t get my head around this kind of logic. To me, it just doesn’t make any sence whatsoever.
I’m not a stickler for correct grammar or sentence structure and half of my daily conversation in the UK consists of slang.
But “already” just baffles me to the point of insanity.
[quote=“mwalimu”]Sure, there is a time and place for “proper English”, but beyond that there’s just a colorful ever changing sea of irregularity. Why question that? Afterall, this is how we came from “Romeo, oh Romeo wherefore art thou?” to “Yo, 'Meo where you be?” or “Oiy, Romeo, where ya hidding at?” or “Romeo where r u?” The Language changes.
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[quote=“Dangermouse”]On thing that get’s on my tits is the use of “ALREADY” in the form of sentences like this:
"Start the car already." - when the car is just about to be started or you asking somebody to start it, or "Phone your friend already" when you are urging someone to call their friend.
I just can’t get my head around this kind of logic. To me, it just doesn’t make any sence whatsoever.
I’m not a stickler for correct grammar or sentence structure and half of my daily conversation in the UK consists of slang.
But “already” just baffles me to the point of insanity.[/quote]
“Already” in those cases is just used as an emphasis… such as “mais” is used in “mais oiu” or “fucking” is used in “fucking hurry”.
Could care less as a sarcastic way of saying couldn’t care less? You gotta be kiddin. It don’t rub me that way at all. Stop with the philosophizing already! We all know that “I could care less” is an just emphatic way of saying “I don’t care.” Maybe you don’t like it but you can’t do nothing about it can you? :raspberry:
It (meaning the phrase in question) means whatever it means to those who are using it. There ain’t no right or wrong, just communication. (Hmmm, maybe that should be my signature… Naa, too new age.)
[quote=“butcher boy”][quote=“Vannyel”]Well butcher boy and others…
:loco:[/quote]
oooh er! hit a nerve
I guess for some people 1–1 = 0?[/quote]
Actually you didn’t hit a nerve, I could care less
But I think it might be prudent for you to stick to the subject at hand which is accepted English usage and not math.
BTW…did you have a response for my observation concerning stupid people or are you just going to pretend most of the English-speaking world is wrong?
So far the people who have thought it was sarcastic (and it do gen-u-ine-ly strike me in that way, y’hear?) are actually the ones defending its use. So stop attacking those who agree with you already! :raspberry: to you too.
I think it conveys a certain level of stupidity if he is claiming that he did nothing [/quote]
Only to the extent that it does give the impression that he has less ‘eddy-cation’ than the latter speaker. Since every native speaker will automatically understand his intended meaning, no-one would actually take that as an admission of guilt, except the Language Police - who would no doubt sentence him to sixth grade again
But a non-native speaker would be thoroughly perplexed and end up with little or no idea of what he was trying to say. As the world is getting fuller and fuller of people struggling to communicate in non-native tongues, that is a matter of no small significance. Therefore, he should have his botty smacked and smacked damn hard for misusing the language so egregiously.
I get thoroughly exasperated when Taiwanese speak to and around me in non-standard Mandarin that leaves me totally in the dark as to what they are trying to say, and I’m deeply appreciative of those I can rely upon to always speak the standard, well-ordered version of Chinese that I’ve invested so many thousands of hours in trying to learn.
But a non-native speaker would be thoroughly perplexed and end up with little or no idea of what he was trying to say. As the world is getting fuller and fuller of people struggling to communicate in non-native tongues, that is a matter of no small significance. [/quote]
When speaking directly to non-native speaker, I think it is only polite to do so in standard English unless your point is to explain non-standard English usage. As I said earlier, no offense meant to non-native English speakers on forumosa.com, but IMHO if you are using this forum to learn standard English you are basically wasting your time.
But a non-native speaker would be thoroughly perplexed and end up with little or no idea of what he was trying to say. As the world is getting fuller and fuller of people struggling to communicate in non-native tongues, that is a matter of no small significance. Therefore, he should have his botty smacked and smacked damn hard for misusing the language so egregiously.[/quote]
Possibly - but surely if those he is speaking to are native speakers, that is irrelevant. I don’t advocate bad grammar due to ignorance, but I love ‘colour’, idiom and slang, which would be just as (if not even more) incomprehensible to non-native speakers, and I think the language would be a damn sight poorer without them. I’m not givin’ up my idioms for nobody! (Take that, purists! )
But by all means smack his botty (can I watch?) - just make sure you explain to the non-native speaker standing by the meaning of ‘botty’ first
As an aside, I actually have this odd thing where if I’m speaking to a non-native speaker I tend to ‘overcorrect’ in the way I speak, and end up sounding grammatically correct, but unnatural :s
I was going to post a fairly dense post slang-wise here just to make the point that most non-native speakers would be “throroughly perplexed and end up with little or no idea of what” we’re saying quite often when we slip into colloquialism and slang. I’m all for considering your audience, but if we started watering down our use of the language just in case someone doesn’t quite get every little detail, I think we’d all the poorer for it.
So if the guy in question was talking to a non-native speaker, then yes, he should be pulled up on it, but otherwise, what’s the problem? Sure, it’s not technically correct, but if you sat down and took notes of exactly how many sentences in an average conversation between native speakers (of any language, I’d be willing to bet) were grammatically correct and stuck strictly to the rules of the language in question, you’d end up with a bloody short list.
Well…Hmmmph… I dislike it when people use the word “hard” when they ought to use the word “difficult”. Rocks are “hard” and some problems are “difficult”…
Really? But, don’t you think “difficult” sounds and or looks much better than “hard”?[/quote]
Really, is it so hard to accept? Tigerman, you’re just being difficult.
Really? But, don’t you think “difficult” sounds and or looks much better than “hard”?[/quote]
Really, is it so hard to accept? Tigerman, you’re just being difficult. [/quote]
Not at all… they don’t call me Tigerman the Copesetic fer nuthin’…
Wow you guys sound like a bunch of old ladies for Christ’s sake. Grammar books and dictionaries don’t tell you how people should speak. They “attempt” to describe how a certain strata of the native population actually does speak. However, they quite often miss out on the kind of language used by large portions of the population. They miss out on a lot of the kinds of language used by inner city people or blue collar people and they frequently fail to take into account the kind of stuff used by almost every native speaker. Stuff like “Wannagotathestore?” In other words a lot of what gets taught to ESL students is spoken by nobody but the friendly folks at studio classroom and their ilk. If someone really hopes to learn to use English he might as well get used to how much figurative speech, slang, abbreviated language and dirty bits it really contains. That is why anybody who studies with me needs to make a commitment of five or six hous a week with episodes of “Friends” or “Sex in the City” or “Six Feet Under.” Throw them in head first I say. They frequently bob to the surface quicker than you would expect.
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