Indian English and a matter of tense
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If I am on the phone, writing an e-mail to the person as I speak, over the phone I would say the former. In the e-mail I would use the past tense, though I would agree that the latter is okay, because at the time of writting you are, and its just conveying something from the writters point of view, and not for the recipents point of view. The reason I would normally use the later, is the majority of my e-mails are for business, and so I want it from my clients perspective. Its just etiquette I supose. An experiment : In the case above would normally write something like "Please find attached", not but definitely not "Please find attching.", as the later is from the recipients perspective. English from what I hear from people to whom it is their second language is a tricky language to learn. There are rules, and then lots of exceptions to the rules. In some cases there are rules with just one example. Hmmm. Then there is the pronaounciation, and the fact that there are lots of words that sound the same but mean different things..... There, Their, They're Which, Witch Where, Were, Wear But I'm sure you are familiar with these, but the list does go on. English is pretty expresive, and flexible. I like the fact that you can swear every other word in a sentance and still make sense. Though I don't do it too often. :)
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
Giles wrote: Then there is the pronaounciation, and the fact that there are lots of words that sound the same but mean different things..... There, Their, They're Which, Witch Where, Were, Wear 'Where' I am, Where, Wear and Ware are pronounced the same; Were isn't (sounds like 'Whirr')...though maybe that's just a UK thang... ;-) My favourite English spelling quirk has to be 'ough' - different sounds in Cough, Bough, Though, Through, Thought must confuse the hell out of non-native speakers. Steve.
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Giles wrote: Then there is the pronaounciation, and the fact that there are lots of words that sound the same but mean different things..... There, Their, They're Which, Witch Where, Were, Wear 'Where' I am, Where, Wear and Ware are pronounced the same; Were isn't (sounds like 'Whirr')...though maybe that's just a UK thang... ;-) My favourite English spelling quirk has to be 'ough' - different sounds in Cough, Bough, Though, Through, Thought must confuse the hell out of non-native speakers. Steve.
viaduct wrote: My favourite English spelling quirk has to be 'ough' - different sounds in Cough, Bough, Though, Through, Thought must confuse the hell out of non-native speakers. Bernard Shaw suggested changing the spelling of "fish" to "ghoti". [gh] from "lau[gh]" [o] from "w[o]men" [ti] from "na[ti]on". Nish
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viaduct wrote: My favourite English spelling quirk has to be 'ough' - different sounds in Cough, Bough, Though, Through, Thought must confuse the hell out of non-native speakers. Bernard Shaw suggested changing the spelling of "fish" to "ghoti". [gh] from "lau[gh]" [o] from "w[o]men" [ti] from "na[ti]on". Nish
Nishant Sivakumar wrote: Bernard Shaw suggested changing the spelling of "fish" to "ghoti". [gh] from "lau[gh]" [o] from "w[o]men" [ti] from "na[ti]on". Nish Maybe you could change Nish to Knoti?
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viaduct wrote: My favourite English spelling quirk has to be 'ough' - different sounds in Cough, Bough, Though, Through, Thought must confuse the hell out of non-native speakers. Bernard Shaw suggested changing the spelling of "fish" to "ghoti". [gh] from "lau[gh]" [o] from "w[o]men" [ti] from "na[ti]on". Nish
:-D Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar "It's like hitting water with your fist. There's all sorts of motion and noise at impact, and no impression left whatsoever shortly thereafter." — gantww.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: Bernard Shaw suggested changing the spelling of "fish" to "ghoti". [gh] from "lau[gh]" [o] from "w[o]men" [ti] from "na[ti]on". Nish Maybe you could change Nish to Knoti?
viaduct wrote: Maybe you could change Nish to Knoti? Or Pnoti :-)
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: Bernard Shaw suggested changing the spelling of "fish" to "ghoti". [gh] from "lau[gh]" [o] from "w[o]men" [ti] from "na[ti]on". Nish Maybe you could change Nish to Knoti?
viaduct wrote: Maybe you could change Nish to Knoti? :laugh: I wish I'd thought of that. Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar "It's like hitting water with your fist. There's all sorts of motion and noise at impact, and no impression left whatsoever shortly thereafter." — gantww.
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viaduct wrote: Maybe you could change Nish to Knoti? :laugh: I wish I'd thought of that. Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar "It's like hitting water with your fist. There's all sorts of motion and noise at impact, and no impression left whatsoever shortly thereafter." — gantww.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: I wish I'd thought of that. I knew that was coming :-)
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: I wish I'd thought of that. I knew that was coming :-)
Nishant Sivakumar wrote: I knew that was coming Couldn't let a good feedline go to waste. ;P
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: I knew that was coming Couldn't let a good feedline go to waste. ;P
viaduct wrote: Couldn't let a good feedline go to waste. Yeah, I understood :-D
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: The 'r' is silent. But it's not pronounced like ion. iron is pronounced more like i-ern
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As someone of German heritage, I've seen first hand that people learn a new language word by word, and then translate using the tense that feels right to them. On another front I was listening to a German metal band yesterday and they have a song called 'Iron Force', but every time he sings it, he emphasises the r in 'iron'. It made me laugh, anyhow. Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++
Christian Graus wrote: On another front I was listening to a German metal band yesterday and they have a song called 'Iron Force', but every time he sings it, he emphasises the r in 'iron'. It made me laugh, anyhow. The singer of a metal band doesn't know how to pronounce 'Iron Maiden'??? :omg:
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Bob Stanneveld wrote: That sounds like scottisch or the silly english that you hear in pirate movies... eye-ern sounds silly to you? So, you pronounce it as i"r"on? (pronouncing the r as in ironic)?
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Christian Graus wrote: On another front I was listening to a German metal band yesterday and they have a song called 'Iron Force', but every time he sings it, he emphasises the r in 'iron'. It made me laugh, anyhow. The singer of a metal band doesn't know how to pronounce 'Iron Maiden'??? :omg:
CP Visitor wrote: The singer of a metal band doesn't know how to pronounce 'Iron Maiden'??? Since when have metal band singers pronounced other band-names correctly :-)
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Giles wrote: I like the fact that you can swear every other word in a sentance and still make sense. Though I don't do it too often. Yeah that's fun ;-)
You must have heard of Jive? Its an interpretation of English I suppose. But the words all mean different things, and well its a good example of extream acts of wrongness in languagification. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/jbc/home/chef.html[^]
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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Giles wrote: Then there is the pronaounciation, and the fact that there are lots of words that sound the same but mean different things..... There, Their, They're Which, Witch Where, Were, Wear 'Where' I am, Where, Wear and Ware are pronounced the same; Were isn't (sounds like 'Whirr')...though maybe that's just a UK thang... ;-) My favourite English spelling quirk has to be 'ough' - different sounds in Cough, Bough, Though, Through, Thought must confuse the hell out of non-native speakers. Steve.
You're not my wife are you? As she keeps telling me!!!!!! :laugh:
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
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Bob Stanneveld wrote: That sounds like scottisch or the silly english that you hear in pirate movies... eye-ern sounds silly to you? So, you pronounce it as i"r"on? (pronouncing the r as in ironic)?
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Bob Stanneveld wrote: I put the emphasis on the 'o' like iron. But then it'll resemble ion, won't it?
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You must have heard of Jive? Its an interpretation of English I suppose. But the words all mean different things, and well its a good example of extream acts of wrongness in languagification. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/jbc/home/chef.html[^]
"Je pense, donc je mange." - Rene Descartes 1689 - Just before his mother put his tea on the table. Shameless Plug - Distributed Database Transactions in .NET using COM+
Giles wrote: _http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/jbc/home/chef.html\[^\]_ That site's very unresponsive!
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Bob Stanneveld wrote: I put the emphasis on the 'o' like iron. But then it'll resemble ion, won't it?
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: That's ironic. Ouch!!!
If you think that's irony, then you must subscribe to the Alanis Morissette interpretation of irony. Matt Gerrans