E-mail "address" and "to be"

[depechemodefan]

First case happened when a lady asked for my help with a job application (online). I asked her if she knew how to use a computer and she said yes. Everything was going fine so I leave her alone for a min and when I come back I see under the field "e-mail address" she was typing her domicile address. So I get her to sign up with yahoo mail.

the other case was a woman (sounds like she is in her 40's and is a native english speaker) said she wanted the forms of "to be". She then added that she was following some rule, that said, "the adjutive must be followed by a form of "to be." What is "to be?" I decided to keep it simple and conjugated the present tense of "to be".

Me and a cw were lamenting the school system in the US. I catted, "she might have thought "to be" was conjugated as 'I is, you is...'"

[depechemodefan]

adding

a cw had this question: would planting trees on the moon make gravitation?

[Mytical]

"To be, or not to be, that is the question."

Don't think gravity works that way (for the last question), but I could be wrong. Now as to would a lot of trees that somehow are protected from things like low gravity, etc eventually lead to an atmosphere. Yes, but it would take one heck of a greenhouse, and a long long long time.

[Teskeria]

the other case was a woman (sounds like she is in her 40's and is a native english speaker) said she wanted the forms of "to be". She then added that she was following some rule, that said, "the adjutive must be followed by a form of "to be." What is "to be?" I decided to keep it simple and conjugated the present tense of "to be".

Me and a cw were lamenting the school system in the US. I catted, "she might have thought "to be" was conjugated as 'I is, you is...'"

I'm a native English speaker over 40, and I couldn't conjugate 'to be' currently. Without more information. I could use it correctly I am sure in a sentence, but I actually had to look up the tense to realize it is AM, ARE, IS. My school days are 30 years past, and you don't (or at least nobody I know) consciously think of the rules of language when writing. I just know when it looks wrong. I don't see any suck in this at all from the caller's part.

[depechemodefan]

I don't see any suck in this at all from the caller's part.

Yes, that is why I posted this in Brain Burps.

[surreal20]

As for language things, I have a feeling it really depends on what school and what English classes were actually use.

As for myself, I had English Advanced Placement. And I'm 24 years old, so it's not been TOO long since those days; so i do tend to think more so in the correct form to write said language.

But what gets me the most is that there are some people who really don't know the different in they're, there, and their. I know 5 year olds who know it...and some people my age don't know it, it boggles me.

Further more, meat and meet. Now i can sort of understand that. Perhaps the teachers, when teaching, didn't correlate the food word meat with the word "eat" in it.

[TheSHAD0W]

"To do is to be" - Nietzsche

"To be is to do" - Kant

"Do Be Do Be Do" - Sinatra

[Chromatix]

Another common mistake I see is "discreet" (quiet, private) versus "discrete" (separate). They are both adjectives, at least.

Really, any homophone is vulnerable to this problem, but you'd think English teachers would point them out and get people to think about it.

[Dreamstalker]

Spoken English is one of the most difficult languages. Hell, I'm a native speaker and sometimes I get confused.

I have a quote somewhere to the effect of:" "English follows other languages into a dark alley, robs them, and occasionally escapes with just the pocket lint."

[Seshat]

adding

a cw had this question: would planting trees on the moon make gravitation?

<whimper>

Well... technically, since you'd be adding (marginally) to the mass on the moon by providing seeds, carbon dioxide, and other necessities for arboreal life ... yes, the moon's gravity would be increased marginally. The gravity of the source location (presumably earth) would be decreased by the same margin.

The trees themselves would not add mass, just rearrange mass (nitrogen and CO2 from the atmosphere you add, water from the water you add or harvest, minerals from the soil -->> Tree).

But as someone else said, the more important consideration is that you'd be potentially adding atmosphere. Though me, I'd start with unicellular life forms, algae and lichens.

[Food Lady]

Another common mistake I see is "discreet" (quiet, private) versus "discrete" (separate). They are both adjectives, at least. Really, any homophone is vulnerable to this problem, but you'd think English teachers would point them out and get people to think about it.

You can point it out all you want; some people just don't get it.

[Andara Bledin]

Another common mistake I see is "discreet" (quiet, private) versus "discrete" (separate). They are both adjectives, at least.

A nice mnemonic is to think of the island, Crete (-ete) being separate from the rest of Greece.

Spoken English is one of the most difficult languages. Hell, I'm a native speaker and sometimes I get confused.

I have a quote somewhere to the effect of:" "English follows other languages into a dark alley, robs them, and occasionally escapes with just the pocket lint."

The full quote:
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
--James D. Nicoll

^-.-^

[EricKei]

My foreign-language teachers have always insisted that English is THE most difficult language on the planet to learn to use properly -- mainly because it's inconsistent. How does that saying go...? "In English, there is an exception to every rule...including this one" x_X

One particularly egregious screwup I see quite frequently -- especially online -- is "breath" vs "breathe" (almost always: "I can't breath!"). I would understand if the writers in these cases were non-native speakers, but even the more skilled native-English scribblers (especially in long-standing blogs, webcomics, et al) do it, and they have no excuse. Is the concept THAT hard, guys? Rule #1 of ANY writing form: THE SPELL-CHECKER IS NEVER ENOUGH!

My personal corrolary to that: Always have someone else check your work. You know what you *meant* to write, so you tend to gloss over minor errors. Other people will come at it from a fresh tack; tell them to be vicious and unforgiving as they check. Your readers will thank you.

[Mycroft]

When proofreading your own stuff, read it a sentence at a time - from the last to the first. That way, it tends to break the "I know what I wrote" brainflow that skips over mistakes or unclear construction. It will drive you nuts that there's no story, but that's the point.

[Darkforge]

another trick we were told that works quite well when proofreading which makes the above easier is to start from the back.

you read the last sentence first and the first sentence last, it means that you have to view each sentence on its own merits and makes it easier to spot any mistakes