[Vampyr]

... because I am really impressed by the people who post here when their first language is not English.

I just wanted to mention that there seems to be an increasing incidence of people typing "lead" when they mean "led". "Led" is the past tense and also the past participle of the verb "to lead".

I hope this is helpful to all you posters whose English is otherwise brilliant.

[the hog]

Stephanie, the standard of English language has declined markedly since the advent of the internet. Further we cannot expect our cousins from the "other side of the pond" to speak correctly when they cannot even spell colour, can we?

[kenrexford]

Maybe there was an intended poetic license of noting the heaviness and potential cause for insanity implicit in opening leads?

[aguahombre]

the hog, on 2011-October-08, 02:17, said:

Stephanie, the standard of English language has declined markedly since the advent of the internet. Further we cannot expect our cousins from the "other side of the pond" to speak correctly when they cannot even spell colour, can we?

OTOH, we can't spell "Leeds" on this side of the pond.

[Vampyr]

LOL

[aguahombre]

Actually, IMO the problem is one of phonics. The element "lead" sounds like "led" and creates confusion for "hooked-on" learners.

[JLOGIC]

No doubt this stems from similar verbs like read having the past tense of read.

To make matters worse, many "ead" verbs are starting to commonly add "ed" for the past tense, eg pleaded instead of pled (though both are still proper, the move towards eaded over ed is pretty clear and makes me sad). I have seen non-native speakers also try leaded. No doubt these things can be confusing to non-english speakers.

[gnasher]

"Pleaded" is normal English English usage. The NSOED gives an example of the use of "pleaded" from the 18th Century.

[gwnn]

Thanks for this. Just a summary search through my posts confirms that I am making this mistake all the time.

immature part:

Spoiler

by the way, I found a post (while looking for my mistakes) from an English teacher who made the same mistake, making me feel better about myself. I won't name him.

[Foxx]

While we're at it, here's another one:

"A lot" is NOT one word.

[Vampyr]

Foxx, on 2011-October-10, 15:34, said:

While we're at it, here's another one:

"A lot" is NOT one word.

And "definitely" does not have any alternative spellings!

Of course, as English is a living language, correct usage in all of these cases will go the way of "beg the question", so any rearguard action is doomed to fail.

Hmmmm... this begs the question [sic] why did I start this thread?

[the hog]

gwnn, on 2011-October-09, 03:38, said:

Thanks for this. Just a summary search through my posts confirms that I am making this mistake all the time.

immature part:

Spoiler

by the way, I found a post (while looking for my mistakes) from an English teacher who made the same mistake, making me feel better about myself. I won't name him.

I think you mean a teacher of English, and not "an English teacher"; (As opposed to an American or a German teacher).

[gwnn]

http://www.thefreedi...English+teacher seems to be in the same error. I know it's not the Alpha and Omega of dictionaries but at least it serves to show that I am not alone.

[Elianna]

Foxx, on 2011-October-10, 15:34, said:

While we're at it, here's another one:

"A lot" is NOT one word.

http://hyperboleanda...everything.html

[aguahombre]

the hog, on 2011-October-11, 00:02, said:

I think you mean a teacher of English, and not "an English teacher"; (As opposed to an American or a German teacher).

Fortunately there is no geographical entity named "History" or "Math" that I am aware of; so Gwnn and I can continue with those errors.

Maybe the other camp should change, and refer to teachers from England so we can understand them.

This post has been edited by aguahombre: 2011-October-11, 18:33

[semeai]

the hog, on 2011-October-11, 00:02, said:

I think you mean a teacher of English, and not "an English teacher"; (As opposed to an American or a German teacher).

You aren't fond of noun adjuncts?

Speaking of which, a quick google search turns up

An introduction to pidgins and creoles by John A. Holm said:

Of course stress can also disambiguate syntactic relationships in intonational languages, e.g. Énglish teacher (noun adjunct: a teacher of English) versus English téacher (adjective plus noun: a teacher from England).

[the hog]

semeai, on 2011-October-11, 18:43, said:

You aren't fond of noun adjuncts?

Speaking of which, a quick google search turns up

I would certainly agree with this. However as stress is not used in written English, but spoken English only, perhaps it is better to be accurate. It s interesting that the quote refers to pidgin English and Creole.
Further I would not regard the "Free Dictionary" as a relaible source. Rather i class this as in the same category as Wikipedia in which any fool can create or edit an entry.

[JLOGIC]

the hog, on 2011-October-11, 20:28, said:

I would certainly agree with this. However as stress is not used in written English, but spoken English only, perhaps it is better to be accurate. It s interesting that the quote refers to pidgin English and Creole.

Not a big fan of context clues? How often have you been confused by reading, "English teacher"? It makes it much more readable and concise to be able to use it that way rather than always have to write, "teacher of English." Adding in ambiguity in some situations which almost never leads to misunderstandings in order to make things read and flow easier and quicker is a smart decision, which is presumably why it was implemented! Read vs read can be much more ambiguous in written language, but it still exists basically out of necessity, because "readed" would be horrible.

If you read things from the 1800s, it is obvious how much the language evolved for the better, and this is not a bad thing. Being able to say English teacher is not a bad thing, it is evolution.

[the hog]

JLOGIC, on 2011-October-11, 20:32, said:

Not a big fan of context clues? How often have you been confused by reading, "English teacher"? It makes it much more readable and concise to be able to use it that way rather than always have to write, "teacher of English." Adding in ambiguity in some situations which almost never leads to misunderstandings in order to make things read and flow easier and quicker is a smart decision, which is presumably why it was implemented! Read vs read can be much more ambiguous in written language, but it still exists basically out of necessity, because "readed" would be horrible.

If you read things from the 1800s, it is obvious how much the language evolved for the better, and this is not a bad thing. Being able to say English teacher is not a bad thing, it is evolution.

An English teacher I know disagrees with you. His home town is Manchester.
Is he a teacher of English or is his nationality English? Anyway, I admit that I am trolling here because I was bored at work.

[BunnyGo]

the hog, on 2011-October-11, 20:50, said:

An English teacher I know disagrees with you. His home town is Manchester.
Is he a teacher of English or is his nationality English? Anyway, I admit that I am trolling here because I was bored at work.

Since he's apparently from New Hampshire he must be a teacher of English.

(There's always a way to find ambiguities, I think this one about English teachers is a bit of a stretch)