Comments on: [How] Do You Correct Friends Who Have Poor Written English?

By: TED

TED — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:34:38 +0000

Ironically the author made a grammatical mistake in sentence two of paragraph two. You don't “try and find the right tone.” The grammatically correct wording is “try to find the right tone.” I like author's use of the old school syntax of early text editing though. So to the author: “s/try and/try to/”.

By: TED

TED — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 07:34:38 +0000

By: dylan

dylan — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:34:50 +0000

My greatest fear is that there will someday be a generation of people who only know txtspk.

By: dylan

dylan — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:34:50 +0000

My greatest fear is that there will someday be a generation of people who only know txtspk.

By: CarlM

CarlM — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:48:14 +0000

"biweekly" is a bad example because it has two meanings.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/biweekly

In the US, it usually means occurring every two weeks, but in the UK it is apparently used both ways fairly frequently.

By: Suzanna

Suzanna — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 09:17:50 +0000

My challenge is sometimes to correct people who have good command over english and still make mistakes.

like use bi-weekly when they mean fortnightly. any ideas? :-)
-Suzanna
My blog

By: CarlM

CarlM — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:22:28 +0000

You're right that it depends on what poor/poorly is describing. We can deduce this from the context. Since there is a valid (and more-or-less proper) English phrase with your word choice, we must deduce that this is the one you meant. That said, some of those who respond to faulty English with alarm bells were probably already hearing those bells before they get to the word "English." (They may also have been looking for another word AFTER English - like "skills" or something.) It is a bit awkwardly written. Would you say that your friends have written English (and that some of them have POOR written English)? Is "written English" something that we "have" or something that we create? I suppose that I HAVE lots of written English in my books ... and to a lesser degree in my various records of my own writing.

Anyway, to expand on your own example:

CORRECT: "My friend's English is poorly written."

INCORRECT: "My friend's English is poor written."

(It's also likely that you mean to include the word "sometimes" or "often".)

By: PI

PI — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:49:31 +0000

I would have corrected him as well. After all, he is your friend.

I would expect a response such as his, especially from a friend. But I don't think it necessarily deserves an explanation or a response such as the one you provided. If he perceives some positive criticism as heat, so be it. He can take it or leave it. Personally, I think you did your part in correcting him.

By: Daniel Miessler

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:24:06 +0000

If I was the only one who gets annoyed at poor English then it would be hubris, but I'm not. The point of the correction is to keep your friend from being humiliated further, not to embarrass them. That's why it was done in private.

By: BMC

BMC — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:20:52 +0000

Dude, anal much? Twitter's only 140 characters and mostly written with tiny little keyboards on mobile devices, while writing in a nanosecond of time. Do you hang out in IRC rooms correcting grammar too?

Yes, using proper punctuation and spelling is important for a medium where a significant amount of writing time is allotted: a blog (re: published web page), e-mail or postal mail letter, published article or book, thesis or other report paper to be graded. But a short, quickly-written text message is in the same category as speech. A Twitter message equates to a real time voice conversation.

Only the most anal-retentive folks go around correcting (read: mocking) people's speech in the middle of a conversation. I know. I live with them and have picked up the bad habit. There's a time and place for such criticisms. Doing so in the manner you chose just served to characterize you as the asshat who ignored the message to look superior to the messenger. Then you elevate it to a blog post for all the world to bathe in your hubris?

Not well done.

By: Augusto Paes de Barros

Augusto Paes de Barros — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:22:43 +0000

As a non-native english speaker I always expect people to correct my mistakes. I have a good control over the Portuguese language when I'm writting, so I can clearly notice how much I miss the same level of fluency when I'm writting in English, specially when the argument is something more complex. As I don't have classes anymore advice from the readers is the only way to correct my mistakes, so they are always welcome. Please feel free to do that, as you have posted comments on my blog, I assume you read it sometimes :-)

By: Daniel Miessler

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:04:15 +0000

Here's a decent one to start out:

http://www.learnenglish.de/mistakes/CommonMista…

By: Daniel Miessler

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:47:09 +0000

So a question has come up regarding the grammar of my title. A couple of people have said it should be "poorly written", not poor. Here's my response, which I'm only 80% sure is correct.

--

I'm pretty sure the title is correct.

CORRECT: "My friend's English is poor."
INCORRECT: "My friend's English is poorly."

The key is the grouping: "poor(ly) written", vs. "written English". I was using the latter, and the way to add "poor" to "written English" is to say "poor written English".

I could still be wrong about this, but I think this is correct.

By: Daniel Miessler

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:33:04 +0000

Hahaha---that's what I call irony.

* fixed

By: CarlM

CarlM — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:46:07 +0000

It will come as no surprise to those who know me to learn that I too have corrected people in their use of they're/there, you're/your, etc. The one I "hear" the most is the lie/lay error .. which is an audible example of this sort of not-quite-the-right-word error.

WRONG: I need to "lay" down, RIGHT: I need to "lie" down.
People are even teaching their DOGS incorrect grammar: "Lay down, Rover!" (cringe)

Anyway, Daniel, I agree completely with your position on this. There are MANY people who take poor grammar as a clue to the intelligence (or personality) of a person with whom they are interacting. We all know how important first impressions are, so it makes sense to avoid contaminating those first impressions with errors that can (at best) be described as careless,

PS I'd never heard of Muphry's Law before, but I've been painfully aware of it at times (and it's why I didn't respond to this post from my iPhone),

By: CarlM

CarlM — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:26:53 +0000

Well, you spelled “Muphry's” wrong, :)

By: Arun

Arun — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:30:27 +0000

Hey, I do need a tutuorial. Do you have one ? I'm trying to write good English for the last four years. Your help would be very much appreciated.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:17:19 +0000

I once corrected my HR manager whom I considered my friend. She would always reply to any email thanking her with a one-line "your welcome" email. She sent these to everyone in the whole firm. I sent her a short, polite email pointing out that she really meant "you're welcome". I got back a blistering email saying that if I had time to critique her grammar, then she would find more work for me to do.

I've since resolved not to correct a friend's grammar again—at least not via email or chat. Text-based media are too lean to convey a helpful critique without coming across as insensitive. The risk of someone taking offense is always there. But maybe I would make a suggestion again face-to-face over lunch or something.

By: Daniel Miessler

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:48:15 +0000

Cool, nice site, btw.

By: Daniel Miessler

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 05:46:48 +0000

I'm just waiting for Murphry's Law to strike me down on the post.

"Muphry's Law dictates [among other things] that if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."