Exactly, if you are a non-native speaker and you intentionally write something in a casual context and a large segment of people understand your meaning then what you have said is definitionally...
Exactly, if you are a non-native speaker and you intentionally write something in a casual context and a large segment of people understand your meaning then what you have said is definitionally correct. But remember meaning is more than the basic semantics of the sentence. "U r so cool!!1!" Has a different meaning to "you are so cool!".
This is a pretty interesting (to me, at least) combination of idiosyncrasies. The lowercase i is the standard for casual SMS-style of writing, whereas all the others are essentially the...
This is a pretty interesting (to me, at least) combination of idiosyncrasies. The lowercase i is the standard for casual SMS-style of writing, whereas all the others are essentially the ultra-proper, almost-no-one-achieves-this-level-of-fancy style.
To be fair, capitalizing the word I is such a weird thing to do. It is literally a one-word exception. It's one of those things you need a while to internalize when learning english.
To be fair, capitalizing the word I is such a weird thing to do. It is literally a one-word exception. It's one of those things you need a while to internalize when learning english.
In the 17th and 18th centuries (and really, continuing even into the early 20th), it was common practice to capitalize quite a few words in writing. I'm not sure how or why, it seemed random to me...
In the 17th and 18th centuries (and really, continuing even into the early 20th), it was common practice to capitalize quite a few words in writing. I'm not sure how or why, it seemed random to me reading it now. It just seemed to be a linguistic style that got superseded at some point. "I" may just be the last holdover because that may very well have been the only capitalized instance that made sense universally to all readers.
Interestingly, the same capitalization exists in historical Swedish, but of the pronoun meaning "you (plural)": "I". At some point, people started to capitalize this word. One possible explanation...
Interestingly, the same capitalization exists in historical Swedish, but of the pronoun meaning "you (plural)": "I". At some point, people started to capitalize this word. One possible explanation might just be that it was also used, as in English, meaning "you (singular)", as a polite alternative to "du" (thou), and the capitalization was also a sign of politeness. But you see the capitalization even when it is not polite and not singular. Another potential reason is that Swedish already has a word called "i", meaning "in(side)".
But I think it might just be that a single "i" looks a bit jarring. Not jarring enough to justify capitalizing a preposition, which would be rather odd, but perhaps jarring enough to justify capitalizing a personal pronoun, a type of word that already has a history of being capitalized out of politeness.
The Swedish "I" was gradually replaced in the written language by "ni", uncapitalized.
As for your suggestion, I don't think there's a connection between the historical capitalization of proper nouns and the capitalization of "I", as it seems to me they have rather different causes, but I might be incorrect.
Random capitalization. I'm not sure just how bad it is these days, but I know 5-10 years ago I was called out on it by an online buddy of mine. It's because I'm german, and we capitalize all...
Random capitalization. I'm not sure just how bad it is these days, but I know 5-10 years ago I was called out on it by an online buddy of mine. It's because I'm german, and we capitalize all nouns. Sometimes that bleeds into english for me. And sometimes I overcorrect: For example, my spell checker wants me to capitalize german and english, which I would usually do, but just to prove a point right now I won't. It's how I write. Who the heck has the time to learn the difference proper and improper nouns? How is german a proper noun in english when it isn't even a noun in german?
ETA: Ohh, and I have a horrible time picking the right prepositions. Again probably because I'm german. The languages are substantially alike, but sometimes the english language just picks weird prepositions to go with stuff. At this point, my progress with improving this passively is coming to a halt, so do alert me if I mess these up, because I don't feel like I've got prepositions down as well as I'd like to.
Too real. Don't be afraid to bend the rules a bit with non-native speakers. If I may generalize from myself, it's usually easier to understand than to be understood. Someone might reply in broken...
old professors who'd always respond to my painstakingly crafted emails with "thamks.. --laurie Sent from my iPhone."
Too real.
Don't be afraid to bend the rules a bit with non-native speakers. If I may generalize from myself, it's usually easier to understand than to be understood. Someone might reply in broken english, but that doesn't mean they can't understand you. I mean, don't rely on the subtext if you really want to get a message across, but don't underestimate them either.
I do the same in german. I try to be more clear and avoid slang with people with an accent. Even though I rationally know perfectly well they can understand me perfectly.
But it's so much fun to find someone on the same wavelength and then break the English language together.
You know what's more fun? Breaking two languages at once. My partner and I are both rather bilingual german/english. We tend to use whichever language we like best in the moment, which leads to lots and lots of switching, often mid sentence. Don't like the word for a concept in german, because the nuance isn't quite right? Use the english one. Don't worry too much about grammar.
Imagine for a second your language as a toolbox. It contains everything you need to get the job done, but at the same time it's kept simple enough that the average Joe can use it. Now imagine someone with a different toolbox, which was put together with a different philosophy. Instead of using a wider variety of tools, each specific to a job, it uses a few tools that combine modularly to adapt to any job. You can easily imagine mixing and matching those tools, because some of those very specific words are just right for the job, but you don't really want to go without the modular parts either.
I don't know if you're bilingual or not, but nothing makes you appreciate the gaping holes in your languages more than if you find a word that is just so right for the situation, you'd need a few sentences in another language to convey the same thing.
When I write formal documentation for work I start capitalizing certain concepts as if they were proper nouns. I do this to emphasize the concept's importance and in an effort to gain traction...
When I write formal documentation for work I start capitalizing certain concepts as if they were proper nouns. I do this to emphasize the concept's importance and in an effort to gain traction with coworkers to reference things the way that I do. For example, using very generic terms:
Our developers need to create a Data Pipeline with our Data Partner. This Data Pipeline will be used to complement our internal systems through our Proprietary Algorithm. Monitoring should be put in place on the Data Pipeline to ensure on-time delivery with our Data Partner.
As a Product Manager (title capitalized for emphasis), many parts of my job are defining things that don't exist yet, and coming up with sticky words is important as I can't be in every conversation across my organization, but I need to ensure that all conversations are on the same page. A key to that is making sure everyone is using the same vocabulary. I don't know if my capitalization has the effect I intended for it, and perhaps it's just organic conversation that allows people to settle on common terminology, but capitalization allows me to skim my documentation and get the gist of things by just reading the key words.
Reverse here; when l see seemingly randomly capitalized words l'll automatically assume the writer is German. There's often also people that use sentence structures that would make sense in...
Reverse here; when l see seemingly randomly capitalized words l'll automatically assume the writer is German.
There's often also people that use sentence structures that would make sense in German/Dutch but don't make sense in English (like this one!).
So sometimes it's easy to figure out someone's native language based on errors like that.
Whoa — I'm a native English speaker and that didn't strike me as weird at all! I guess if I were being really particular, I might say that "there is often also" sounds unidiomatic, but I can't...
Whoa — I'm a native English speaker and that didn't strike me as weird at all!
I guess if I were being really particular, I might say that "there is often also" sounds unidiomatic, but I can't really explain why. Is that what you mean?
From German (I think), I now use already in the present tense to describe something in the past as though it were happening now. It's so useful! For example, here I wrote "Already Kapustin starts taking the themes apart" to signify that the taking-apart is happening sooner than you might expect — it is happening already (in the past). Grammatically, this matches "literary present tense" (e.g. "Juliet takes a potion from the Friar"), but it extends the sense of already.
You will pry my overuse of em-dashes from my cold, dead hands. I also use the word "also" a lot and sometimes I am overeager to put a "u" after an "o" even when it's not an appropriate...
You will pry my overuse of em-dashes from my cold, dead hands. I also use the word "also" a lot and sometimes I am overeager to put a "u" after an "o" even when it's not an appropriate British/Canadian spelling of the word.
I can have some trouble with anglicized loan words when I pronounce them too. I am bilingual French/English so sometimes I lean towards the French pronunciation of a word inappropriately, especially with the French "ll".
Something I subconsciously do in spoken English is adapt my accent to mimic the person/group I am talking to. For example, if I'm talking to Southerners, I might start adopting a drawl and...
Something I subconsciously do in spoken English is adapt my accent to mimic the person/group I am talking to. For example, if I'm talking to Southerners, I might start adopting a drawl and vernacular typical of a good ol' country boy, yessir. When I was traveling through Europe for an extended period of time I grew a hodgepodge of various European accents that made me not sound American, but also not distinctly belonging to any particular European country.
Sometimes I realize what I'm doing in the middle of conversation, and I try to be careful to not go overboard, or to reveal my charade. I don't want to be viewed as patronizing, as I think I'm subconsciously changing my accent to connect better with the strangers I'm talking to, and perhaps it works to my benefit (or maybe I'm being silently judged for my inauthentic accent).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring If you are doing this subconsciously it can mean you are actively trying to build rapport with whoever you are talking to, which is a plus for me if I was...
If you are doing this subconsciously it can mean you are actively trying to build rapport with whoever you are talking to, which is a plus for me if I was the person opposite you.
It does feel a bit silly when you catch yourself doing it. People who do it purposefully can come off as funny at best and malicious at worst.
Very likely true, it’s probably how accents evolved to begin with. For me though, I tend to get deeply embedded in the accent itself (particularly when drinking), where it becomes difficult to...
Very likely true, it’s probably how accents evolved to begin with. For me though, I tend to get deeply embedded in the accent itself (particularly when drinking), where it becomes difficult to shake off to the extent that I’ve been called out by my closer friends for my fake accent (easily identified because my everyday speech uses California English / General American).
I do this quite a bit, and am only saved by the general inconsistency of any of my pronunciations anyway. There's definitely some mindfuckery that comes with realizing it mid-conversation, but if...
I do this quite a bit, and am only saved by the general inconsistency of any of my pronunciations anyway. There's definitely some mindfuckery that comes with realizing it mid-conversation, but if it's not intentional, I'm not sure it's something to be ashamed of? That's what I tell myself, as I lie awake in bed, at least.
I'm unhealthily addicted to commas. My sentence structures become weird I think because I translate in my head? It is kind of amazing how you can type out ligatures and greek. On my keyboard each...
I'm unhealthily addicted to commas. My sentence structures become weird I think because I translate in my head?
It is kind of amazing how you can type out ligatures and greek. On my keyboard each individual symbol would take too long. The only shortcut I've memorized is Ñ.
Only thing I can think of is I always end my text messages with a space, but this isn’t really an English thing. I mostly do it because I want to make sure the last word is autocorrected instead...
Only thing I can think of is I always end my text messages with a space, but this isn’t really an English thing. I mostly do it because I want to make sure the last word is autocorrected instead of gibberish, but my friends have noticed it throughout the years
Out of laziness l use a lowercase "L" in place of an uppercase "i" when l need the latter. This apparently annoys some people, as they'll search my post history (usually on Discord) and find out...
Out of laziness l use a lowercase "L" in place of an uppercase "i" when l need the latter.
This apparently annoys some people, as they'll search my post history (usually on Discord) and find out every single "l" l use is actually a lowercase L.
Also, l omit words like "l've" a lot, which means l talk like how a changelog is written in conversation, which apparently is confusing to some people.
For example, "(l) Made a support frame, (and l) added hinges. (l'm) Also making another."
Maybe this is normal, maybe l just like short sentences.
And some things that can be considered Dunglish: ending sentences with phrases like these (English + translation): "and the lot" / "enzo", "or so" / "ofzo", "or something" / "ofzoiets".
In Dutch these are short, easy to use and similarly sounding, so using them in every sentence isn't unusual at all. In English however, these totally sound out of place and make it obvious l'm not a native speaker.
Sometimes mix up text formatting styles, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. Like, starting a quote with a " and ending it with a single '. Or, making a list in a sentence and listing list items like 1) this, II. this, 3: this. Again? usually accidentally.
Finally, l often make comments on things in parentheses; sometimes l end those with a smiley face. l like to make the closing parenthese(?) part of the smiley face! (so you don't get a double closing parenthese :)
My font displays a small swish at the lower end of a lowercase l. It's probably done exactly to counter such trolling as asoftbird displays :D I do agree, it looks quite wrong this way.
My font displays a small swish at the lower end of a lowercase l. It's probably done exactly to counter such trolling as asoftbird displays :D
My English is frequently a form of translated Portuguese, either consciously or not. It’s very hard for me to use English rules for commas since they’re subtly distinct from Portuguese and just...
My English is frequently a form of translated Portuguese, either consciously or not. It’s very hard for me to use English rules for commas since they’re subtly distinct from Portuguese and just sound wrong and bizarre. It’s also hard to employ inclusive language since in Portuguese almost everything has a gender, including inanimate objects.
I've been told off for my habit of writing "noone" as one word instead of two. For some reason, people can read "someone" without pronouncing it like "galleon", but they can't read "noone" without...
I've been told off for my habit of writing "noone" as one word instead of two. For some reason, people can read "someone" without pronouncing it like "galleon", but they can't read "noone" without pronouncing it like "goon".
When typing anything more formal than a text message I double space after full stops. It's not something needed anymore and I never learnt to type on a typewriter but it's something I picked up...
When typing anything more formal than a text message I double space after full stops. It's not something needed anymore and I never learnt to type on a typewriter but it's something I picked up from people who's work I proof read and who also proof mine.
I still do this too, often even in text messages just out of habit. Leaving it out always leaves things feeling cramped. I want to say I picked it up from either a typing game or maybe a high...
I still do this too, often even in text messages just out of habit. Leaving it out always leaves things feeling cramped. I want to say I picked it up from either a typing game or maybe a high school English teacher, but I'm not sure.
Admittedly, I spend a great deal of time working with monospaced fonts in the terminal or emacs, which probably influences my habits.
I hyphenate the shit outta everything that otherwise doesn't really need to be hyphenated. Some examples pulled from my blog: distraction-free retina-style multi-battery low-power co-processor I'm...
I hyphenate the shit outta everything that otherwise doesn't really need to be hyphenated. Some examples pulled from my blog:
distraction-free
retina-style
multi-battery
low-power
co-processor
I'm honestly not sure which of those are acceptable. Low-power is probably the worst offender.
No that’s different. I think rogue_cricket is talking about when you use “—“ instead of a semi-colon or full stop—but I could be wrong. I’m talking about joining words together that are part of...
No that’s different. I think rogue_cricket is talking about when you use “—“ instead of a semi-colon or full stop—but I could be wrong. I’m talking about joining words together that are part of the same thought.
I do also use — a lot, coincidentally. My pet-theory (ha) is that I’ve started using it more since I switched to macOS. Em and en dash are Opt-dash and Opt-Shift-dash respectively.
I often write/mentally process "utilize" as "euralize", because I thought it was written like that. (Pic unrelated) Also goes for "U-social" instead of "eusocial". And "neesh" instead of "niche"....
I often write/mentally process "utilize" as "euralize", because I thought it was written like that. (Pic unrelated)
Also goes for "U-social" instead of "eusocial".
And "neesh" instead of "niche".
And "yolk" instead of "yoke".
And "rike" instead of "reich" (when anglicized.)
And definitely as a short form of definitively.
My handwriting (wholly cursive) "H" often looks like a cursive "ss" if I'm not careful.
I also often pronounce words in a really weird way if I feel like being/marking something as hyperbolic (I.E saying "overwhelmingly white" in a dumb way because the idea of white identity is nonsense.) Think of it as a vocal equivalent of writing "BuT mUh FrEeZePeAcH". Obviously I don't do this in public since I'm rarely in public and I'm not that detached from it.
If I'm copying italic text from a textbook, I will try to write in italic too. It always ends up looking horrible, but god damnit I want to write italic.
Edit: The I in Internet is only capitalized in my comments because my autocorrect said so /s
I think I actually figured out that I was writing that word wrong because of your comment there. The funny thing is, writing it as "euralize" is either worse or much worse.
I think I actually figured out that I was writing that word wrong because of your comment there. The funny thing is, writing it as "euralize" is either worse or much worse.
Sometimes instead of writing the past tense of a verb I write the verb + "it" without noticing, e.g. "destroy it" instead of "destroyed". Probably because in my mind they sound almost the same.
Sometimes instead of writing the past tense of a verb I write the verb + "it" without noticing, e.g. "destroy it" instead of "destroyed". Probably because in my mind they sound almost the same.
Isn't the setting apart of names of a deity in this and similar ways in otherwise normal writing largely a tradition in Abrahamic religions? It is not an area where I am particularly familiar, but...
Isn't the setting apart of names of a deity in this and similar ways in otherwise normal writing largely a tradition in Abrahamic religions? It is not an area where I am particularly familiar, but I haven't heard of it in classical Greek writing, especially in non-religious contexts or for derivative terms.
And what is the system behind the spelling and choice of diacritics you use? You use romanized forms in Latin script, and it seems as though you are using Latin spellings (eg, no -ν in Apollo), but you add a macron only for Apollo, not Hermes. Yet then you add Greek accents (but not breathings?) for Apollo, but not Hermes (either monotonic or polytonic)?
While I can understand that you are doing this out of a desire for reverence, you should realize that there are those who would feel this is culturally appropriative and rather offensive. I would...
While I can understand that you are doing this out of a desire for reverence, you should realize that there are those who would feel this is culturally appropriative and rather offensive. I would be particularly wary of changing what others have written when you are quoting them.
The Greek language has a long history, and is heavily entangled with politics and understandings of Greek identity, particularly surrounding the "Greek language question". Polytonic diacritics in modern writing, while not outright καθαρεύουσα, are not an apolitical choice: they were removed from standard modern Greek in large part as an eventual consequence of the junta being overthrown, and it is no coincidence that they are now primarily used by conservatives. And whatever its place in politics was before, καθαρεύουσα is now tied to junta, and polytonic writing to καθαρεύουσα.
I doubt that you write these names the way you do with the intention of honouring the legacy of a brutal military dictatorship, but it could be seen as incautiously wandering into centuries-old controversies that have at times involved violence. I would encourage you to consider writing with small caps, but without any accents. This is more consistent with actual Classical-era usage, anyway, where accents would not have been used at all, feels somewhat less appropriative, and avoids much of the politics.
Your use of diaereses, on the other hand, may well have convinced me to consider using them in English.
Saw this pop up on my feed earlier this week and it made me realize I do something with aphorisms(?). I tend to warp my usages of them to fit the situation at hand. They remain recognizable from...
Saw this pop up on my feed earlier this week and it made me realize I do something with aphorisms(?). I tend to warp my usages of them to fit the situation at hand. They remain recognizable from the original format, but tend to not 'make sense' unless you have the context of the current situation.
For example, I was talking with a coworker about how much of our back-end was written using Stored Procedures, and how much BL was dependent on SQL. (Legacy application, we're currently re-platforming it using modern technologies). A comment that I made was: "When all you know is SQL....... everything looks like a nail." Which is a bastardization of the saying "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." It makes sense in the context of the conversation (I think), but I would get laughed out of the room pulling that out in almost any other situation.
Is OP the editor for The New Yorker? As an aside, all of those are valid style choices except for the lowercase i, which is just incorrect, isn't it?
Exactly, if you are a non-native speaker and you intentionally write something in a casual context and a large segment of people understand your meaning then what you have said is definitionally correct. But remember meaning is more than the basic semantics of the sentence. "U r so cool!!1!" Has a different meaning to "you are so cool!".
This is a pretty interesting (to me, at least) combination of idiosyncrasies. The lowercase i is the standard for casual SMS-style of writing, whereas all the others are essentially the ultra-proper, almost-no-one-achieves-this-level-of-fancy style.
To be fair, capitalizing the word I is such a weird thing to do. It is literally a one-word exception. It's one of those things you need a while to internalize when learning english.
In the 17th and 18th centuries (and really, continuing even into the early 20th), it was common practice to capitalize quite a few words in writing. I'm not sure how or why, it seemed random to me reading it now. It just seemed to be a linguistic style that got superseded at some point. "I" may just be the last holdover because that may very well have been the only capitalized instance that made sense universally to all readers.
Interestingly, the same capitalization exists in historical Swedish, but of the pronoun meaning "you (plural)": "I". At some point, people started to capitalize this word. One possible explanation might just be that it was also used, as in English, meaning "you (singular)", as a polite alternative to "du" (thou), and the capitalization was also a sign of politeness. But you see the capitalization even when it is not polite and not singular. Another potential reason is that Swedish already has a word called "i", meaning "in(side)".
But I think it might just be that a single "i" looks a bit jarring. Not jarring enough to justify capitalizing a preposition, which would be rather odd, but perhaps jarring enough to justify capitalizing a personal pronoun, a type of word that already has a history of being capitalized out of politeness.
The Swedish "I" was gradually replaced in the written language by "ni", uncapitalized.
As for your suggestion, I don't think there's a connection between the historical capitalization of proper nouns and the capitalization of "I", as it seems to me they have rather different causes, but I might be incorrect.
Random capitalization. I'm not sure just how bad it is these days, but I know 5-10 years ago I was called out on it by an online buddy of mine. It's because I'm german, and we capitalize all nouns. Sometimes that bleeds into english for me. And sometimes I overcorrect: For example, my spell checker wants me to capitalize german and english, which I would usually do, but just to prove a point right now I won't. It's how I write. Who the heck has the time to learn the difference proper and improper nouns? How is german a proper noun in english when it isn't even a noun in german?
ETA: Ohh, and I have a horrible time picking the right prepositions. Again probably because I'm german. The languages are substantially alike, but sometimes the english language just picks weird prepositions to go with stuff. At this point, my progress with improving this passively is coming to a halt, so do alert me if I mess these up, because I don't feel like I've got prepositions down as well as I'd like to.
Too real.
Don't be afraid to bend the rules a bit with non-native speakers. If I may generalize from myself, it's usually easier to understand than to be understood. Someone might reply in broken english, but that doesn't mean they can't understand you. I mean, don't rely on the subtext if you really want to get a message across, but don't underestimate them either.
I do the same in german. I try to be more clear and avoid slang with people with an accent. Even though I rationally know perfectly well they can understand me perfectly.
You know what's more fun? Breaking two languages at once. My partner and I are both rather bilingual german/english. We tend to use whichever language we like best in the moment, which leads to lots and lots of switching, often mid sentence. Don't like the word for a concept in german, because the nuance isn't quite right? Use the english one. Don't worry too much about grammar.
Imagine for a second your language as a toolbox. It contains everything you need to get the job done, but at the same time it's kept simple enough that the average Joe can use it. Now imagine someone with a different toolbox, which was put together with a different philosophy. Instead of using a wider variety of tools, each specific to a job, it uses a few tools that combine modularly to adapt to any job. You can easily imagine mixing and matching those tools, because some of those very specific words are just right for the job, but you don't really want to go without the modular parts either.
I don't know if you're bilingual or not, but nothing makes you appreciate the gaping holes in your languages more than if you find a word that is just so right for the situation, you'd need a few sentences in another language to convey the same thing.
When I write formal documentation for work I start capitalizing certain concepts as if they were proper nouns. I do this to emphasize the concept's importance and in an effort to gain traction with coworkers to reference things the way that I do. For example, using very generic terms:
As a Product Manager (title capitalized for emphasis), many parts of my job are defining things that don't exist yet, and coming up with sticky words is important as I can't be in every conversation across my organization, but I need to ensure that all conversations are on the same page. A key to that is making sure everyone is using the same vocabulary. I don't know if my capitalization has the effect I intended for it, and perhaps it's just organic conversation that allows people to settle on common terminology, but capitalization allows me to skim my documentation and get the gist of things by just reading the key words.
Reverse here; when l see seemingly randomly capitalized words l'll automatically assume the writer is German.
There's often also people that use sentence structures that would make sense in German/Dutch but don't make sense in English (like this one!).
So sometimes it's easy to figure out someone's native language based on errors like that.
Whoa — I'm a native English speaker and that didn't strike me as weird at all!
I guess if I were being really particular, I might say that "there is often also" sounds unidiomatic, but I can't really explain why. Is that what you mean?
From German (I think), I now use already in the present tense to describe something in the past as though it were happening now. It's so useful! For example, here I wrote "Already Kapustin starts taking the themes apart" to signify that the taking-apart is happening sooner than you might expect — it is happening already (in the past). Grammatically, this matches "literary present tense" (e.g. "Juliet takes a potion from the Friar"), but it extends the sense of already.
You will pry my overuse of em-dashes from my cold, dead hands. I also use the word "also" a lot and sometimes I am overeager to put a "u" after an "o" even when it's not an appropriate British/Canadian spelling of the word.
I can have some trouble with anglicized loan words when I pronounce them too. I am bilingual French/English so sometimes I lean towards the French pronunciation of a word inappropriately, especially with the French "ll".
Something I subconsciously do in spoken English is adapt my accent to mimic the person/group I am talking to. For example, if I'm talking to Southerners, I might start adopting a drawl and vernacular typical of a good ol' country boy, yessir. When I was traveling through Europe for an extended period of time I grew a hodgepodge of various European accents that made me not sound American, but also not distinctly belonging to any particular European country.
Sometimes I realize what I'm doing in the middle of conversation, and I try to be careful to not go overboard, or to reveal my charade. I don't want to be viewed as patronizing, as I think I'm subconsciously changing my accent to connect better with the strangers I'm talking to, and perhaps it works to my benefit (or maybe I'm being silently judged for my inauthentic accent).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring
If you are doing this subconsciously it can mean you are actively trying to build rapport with whoever you are talking to, which is a plus for me if I was the person opposite you.
It does feel a bit silly when you catch yourself doing it. People who do it purposefully can come off as funny at best and malicious at worst.
I believe most people do this to some extent.
Very likely true, it’s probably how accents evolved to begin with. For me though, I tend to get deeply embedded in the accent itself (particularly when drinking), where it becomes difficult to shake off to the extent that I’ve been called out by my closer friends for my fake accent (easily identified because my everyday speech uses California English / General American).
I do this quite a bit, and am only saved by the general inconsistency of any of my pronunciations anyway. There's definitely some mindfuckery that comes with realizing it mid-conversation, but if it's not intentional, I'm not sure it's something to be ashamed of? That's what I tell myself, as I lie awake in bed, at least.
I'm unhealthily addicted to commas. My sentence structures become weird I think because I translate in my head?
It is kind of amazing how you can type out ligatures and greek. On my keyboard each individual symbol would take too long. The only shortcut I've memorized is Ñ.
Also big same on the uncapitalized i.
Auto. Hot. Key. Scripts. How could this be the first I've ever heard of them? TIL, thanks!
Gonna google and play around with this later.
I use "quite" (in the "a little bit" sense) way too much.
So you use quite, quite too much?
Not quite but you get the idea.
Only thing I can think of is I always end my text messages with a space, but this isn’t really an English thing. I mostly do it because I want to make sure the last word is autocorrected instead of gibberish, but my friends have noticed it throughout the years
Out of laziness l use a lowercase "L" in place of an uppercase "i" when l need the latter.
This apparently annoys some people, as they'll search my post history (usually on Discord) and find out every single "l" l use is actually a lowercase L.
Also, l omit words like "l've" a lot, which means l talk like how a changelog is written in conversation, which apparently is confusing to some people.
For example, "(l) Made a support frame, (and l) added hinges. (l'm) Also making another."
Maybe this is normal, maybe l just like short sentences.
And some things that can be considered Dunglish: ending sentences with phrases like these (English + translation): "and the lot" / "enzo", "or so" / "ofzo", "or something" / "ofzoiets".
In Dutch these are short, easy to use and similarly sounding, so using them in every sentence isn't unusual at all. In English however, these totally sound out of place and make it obvious l'm not a native speaker.
Sometimes mix up text formatting styles, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. Like, starting a quote with a " and ending it with a single '. Or, making a list in a sentence and listing list items like 1) this, II. this, 3: this. Again? usually accidentally.
Finally, l often make comments on things in parentheses; sometimes l end those with a smiley face. l like to make the closing parenthese(?) part of the smiley face! (so you don't get a double closing parenthese :)
That's so funny. It looks so incredibly wrong when, the actual uppercase "I" is serifed!
My font displays a small swish at the lower end of a lowercase l. It's probably done exactly to counter such trolling as asoftbird displays :D
I do agree, it looks quite wrong this way.
My English is frequently a form of translated Portuguese, either consciously or not. It’s very hard for me to use English rules for commas since they’re subtly distinct from Portuguese and just sound wrong and bizarre. It’s also hard to employ inclusive language since in Portuguese almost everything has a gender, including inanimate objects.
I've been told off for my habit of writing "noone" as one word instead of two. For some reason, people can read "someone" without pronouncing it like "galleon", but they can't read "noone" without pronouncing it like "goon".
When typing anything more formal than a text message I double space after full stops. It's not something needed anymore and I never learnt to type on a typewriter but it's something I picked up from people who's work I proof read and who also proof mine.
I still do this too, often even in text messages just out of habit. Leaving it out always leaves things feeling cramped. I want to say I picked it up from either a typing game or maybe a high school English teacher, but I'm not sure.
Admittedly, I spend a great deal of time working with monospaced fonts in the terminal or emacs, which probably influences my habits.
I hyphenate the shit outta everything that otherwise doesn't really need to be hyphenated. Some examples pulled from my blog:
I'm honestly not sure which of those are acceptable. Low-power is probably the worst offender.
Mildly off-topic but aren't you saying basically the same thing as @rogue_cricket here?
No that’s different. I think rogue_cricket is talking about when you use “—“ instead of a semi-colon or full stop—but I could be wrong. I’m talking about joining words together that are part of the same thought.
I do also use — a lot, coincidentally. My pet-theory (ha) is that I’ve started using it more since I switched to macOS. Em and en dash are Opt-dash and Opt-Shift-dash respectively.
Oh, okay. I just looked it up and apparently there is a difference :I
I often write/mentally process "utilize" as "euralize", because I thought it was written like that. (Pic unrelated)
Also goes for "U-social" instead of "eusocial".
And "neesh" instead of "niche".
And "yolk" instead of "yoke".
And "rike" instead of "reich" (when anglicized.)
And definitely as a short form of definitively.
My handwriting (wholly cursive) "H" often looks like a cursive "ss" if I'm not careful.
I also often pronounce words in a really weird way if I feel like being/marking something as hyperbolic (I.E saying "overwhelmingly white" in a dumb way because the idea of white identity is nonsense.) Think of it as a vocal equivalent of writing "BuT mUh FrEeZePeAcH". Obviously I don't do this in public since I'm rarely in public and I'm not that detached from it.
If I'm copying italic text from a textbook, I will try to write in italic too. It always ends up looking horrible, but god damnit I want to write italic.
Edit: The I in Internet is only capitalized in my comments because my autocorrect said so /s
Ha! I was just about to write another comment, inspired by your statement, about how much I hate that word.
I think I actually figured out that I was writing that word wrong because of your comment there. The funny thing is, writing it as "euralize" is either worse or much worse.
I actually like the sound and spelling of that quite a bit, shame it's not another word by coincidence.
Other non native https://tildes.net/~talk/r8c/do_you_have_any_quirks_idiosyncracies_in_how_you_use_the_english_language#comment-5gp0
Yes, my native language is PT-BR.
Install Gramarly on the browser. Very useful for us Brazilians.
Sometimes instead of writing the past tense of a verb I write the verb + "it" without noticing, e.g. "destroy it" instead of "destroyed". Probably because in my mind they sound almost the same.
o/ fellow pagan
I use parentheses a lot I think. I also tend to say "yep, see ya" instead of just "see ya".
One can (almost) never have too many parentheses.
Why only the Greek gods? Why not all gods equally?
Isn't the setting apart of names of a deity in this and similar ways in otherwise normal writing largely a tradition in Abrahamic religions? It is not an area where I am particularly familiar, but I haven't heard of it in classical Greek writing, especially in non-religious contexts or for derivative terms.
And what is the system behind the spelling and choice of diacritics you use? You use romanized forms in Latin script, and it seems as though you are using Latin spellings (eg, no -ν in Apollo), but you add a macron only for Apollo, not Hermes. Yet then you add Greek accents (but not breathings?) for Apollo, but not Hermes (either monotonic or polytonic)?
While I can understand that you are doing this out of a desire for reverence, you should realize that there are those who would feel this is culturally appropriative and rather offensive. I would be particularly wary of changing what others have written when you are quoting them.
The Greek language has a long history, and is heavily entangled with politics and understandings of Greek identity, particularly surrounding the "Greek language question". Polytonic diacritics in modern writing, while not outright καθαρεύουσα, are not an apolitical choice: they were removed from standard modern Greek in large part as an eventual consequence of the junta being overthrown, and it is no coincidence that they are now primarily used by conservatives. And whatever its place in politics was before, καθαρεύουσα is now tied to junta, and polytonic writing to καθαρεύουσα.
I doubt that you write these names the way you do with the intention of honouring the legacy of a brutal military dictatorship, but it could be seen as incautiously wandering into centuries-old controversies that have at times involved violence. I would encourage you to consider writing with small caps, but without any accents. This is more consistent with actual Classical-era usage, anyway, where accents would not have been used at all, feels somewhat less appropriative, and avoids much of the politics.
Your use of diaereses, on the other hand, may well have convinced me to consider using them in English.
Saw this pop up on my feed earlier this week and it made me realize I do something with aphorisms(?). I tend to warp my usages of them to fit the situation at hand. They remain recognizable from the original format, but tend to not 'make sense' unless you have the context of the current situation.
For example, I was talking with a coworker about how much of our back-end was written using Stored Procedures, and how much BL was dependent on SQL. (Legacy application, we're currently re-platforming it using modern technologies). A comment that I made was: "When all you know is SQL....... everything looks like a nail." Which is a bastardization of the saying "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." It makes sense in the context of the conversation (I think), but I would get laughed out of the room pulling that out in almost any other situation.