Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

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jayles

Member Since

August 12, 2010

Total number of comments

748

Total number of votes received

228

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Latest Comments

“Anglish”

  • May 23, 2011, 6:43pm

"Outside of the big cities, it is probably a lot less like what you have described."
Well maybe up till now You could make a last stand for Anglish in some remote valley in Northumbria, in the hills north of Jedburgh......fending off the incoming hordes.....rather like Arthur did to the Saxons in the first place.

“Anglish”

  • May 18, 2011, 6:31pm

"Language and culture have little to do with DNA," But what exactly is wrong with beautiful Norman/anglo-french words like "sheriff"; or celtic words like "carry" why would you deny us our heritage? What is the basis for IMPOSING your ideas about what is acceptable English and what is not? or for IMPOSING your Germanic words upon us? Why should we accept it? Why is Germanic better than celtic, better than anything else?
Frankly in Londinium today I hear more Urdu, Gujurati, Arabic, Tamil, Polish, and the rest than English (outside business circles of course). Must all these people too succumb to the Germanic tongue? If not why not?
Now that should stir things up a bit!!! ;=))

“Anglish”

  • May 16, 2011, 9:40pm

Ængelfolc: Situation normal; alternative words work for some of the meanings and usages but not all. eg a) This year's models include several new safety features
b) Her eyes are her best feature
I don't think hallmark would work well here. To me "hallmark" will always suggest the little markings on silverware which tell you when it was made and where. Dictionaries give about seven usages of feature, so it would be hard to cover with just one substitute.
"Suspend" as in "Japan will suspend production at three nuclear power plants"
Japan will put production on hold at ....
However one can also suspend an employee, etc
Once again we would need multiple substitutes to cover the various usages.
In the end, when we get to technospeak it may be better to stick with the latinate words just so everyone is clear what is meant. I think some of them are there and used because there is no obvious "anglish" alternative. (otherchoice)
Yet again in the same news article I found "painstaking", "stricken" "vow" and other good english words. Journalists and newswriters are usually very good at using "anglish" expressions wherever possible. After all writing is their craft.

“Anglish”

  • May 16, 2011, 1:06am

"I'd like you to meet..." is a nice anglish way of introducing people.
"May I present..." ("Darf ich vorstellen..") is fine in German but too demeaning or snooty for normal business or social life in English. Dangerous to translate verbatim (or word-for-word).
Some words are relatively easy to substitute eg reduce -> cut back (on) (noun cutback)
Others such as education much more difficult eg "learning" 'schooling" "training" all change the underlying concept. "development" would be closer but I guess is french.
Earlier "hallmark" was put forward for "feature" but really a hallmark identifies something, whereas features are the salient points.
Rather than attempting open slather on all alien words I think we need to begin by setting a target of an acceptable level of latinate words in normal "business" or social writing. Every language has borrowings, old and new, the question is how much is okay? and why? what is the criterion? the thing-by-which-we-judge (from the Gk kpnvw to judge)

“Anglish”

  • May 15, 2011, 9:04pm

The pitfalls of etymology:
a) session: sitting as in "afternoon session" at the cinema. Oh yes. from sedere to sit (L)
but what about "football practice session" .... they don't sit...

b) introduce: -> "lead-in" . Fine. But introduce is most often a verb "make known"
"May I lead-in my boss Mr Obama?"
"May I make known my boss, Mr Obama?"
It's the formality which is elusive.
c) reduce, deduce, produce, adduce, seduce, (extrajuice please?)
why suddenly "conduct" not conduce, why educate, not educe????
The really interesting thing is how impossible it would be to guess the meanings even if one knew the etymology of the prefix and main verb. Anglish may even suffer the same fate.

“Anglish”

  • May 15, 2011, 8:50pm

Ængelfolc: "No, I am not a weapons dealer!! " Of course not, I believe you! No, really, I do.
Rowling? Tolkien? I confess I have read neither. You may shrive me. But successful books today are written alost like plays, eg the da Vinci code, with scenes and dialogs ready for filming. You could write "Earl of the Wings", but "Parry Hotter" is too obvious.

Usage rules for adverbs

  • May 11, 2011, 8:01pm

Normal word order in English is Subject Verb Object Manner Place Time (SVOMPT)
Some adverbs (especially of frequency) are usually placed between subject and verb (as in this sentence). Also question words such as "how" may head the senTence. Apart from this moving adverbs to another position may be done to put a short adverb before a long adverbial phrase, but we DO expect the object to follow IMMEDIATELY after the verb. Word order is important for comprehension in English as the language is largely uninflected. Contrast for example Russian where word order is much freeer as relationships are indicated by the endings of the words. So whatever you do with "proactively" in this case don't split the verb and object.

“Anglish”

  • May 10, 2011, 6:41pm

Ængelfolc: "All one needs is a thesaurus and an English etymological dictionary."
I would be much easier if there was a nice program on the web that simply highlighted the latinate words in your document and suggested non-latinate ones instead. Thesaurus is nice but often just suggests even more latinate words and perhaps a saxon one and presumes you know which are which - esp which really came from frankish. Now there's a nice project!

“Anglish”

  • May 10, 2011, 6:33pm

Ængelfolc: a) I introduced the topic of overpopulation to highlight the relative importance of Anglish; there are I believe more pressing issues. As I understand it wheat for Rome was mainly grown around Carthage and over the centuries this led to the deforestation and desertification of what is now Tunisia. So all I am suggesting is that it might be more important to focus our attention on, say, colony collapse disorder of honeybees, than worrying too much about latinate words in English.
b) I do understand your interest in etymology and in a way it is a shame that you are not already working in some academic situation where you could undermine the enemy from within. People might even read your books if your standing were better.
However for all I know your business may be vital to the economy (but hopefully not weapons dealing)

“Anglish”

  • May 7, 2011, 11:28pm

Academia is a tough target; it would be easier to target business via plain-speaking; this would then provide a platform to influence academics