I am not a tourist – surviving sour Dunglish

Today, we also have a badly written article in Dunglish by De Pers.

The learner’s English short sentences lacking subordinate clauses, the double negatives, the nonsense and the clichés. Barf. The sarcastic tone doesn’t work in English at all.

To the author of this pathetic piece of journalism: Don’t write in English if you can’t (and you can’t) and move if you don’t like it here — that’s what they tell us immigrants and expats all the time.

(Tip: Yelda, Link: De Pers)

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9 Responses to “I am not a tourist – surviving sour Dunglish”

  1. Larry says:

    I didn’t see any double negatives, although plenty of clunky sentences that would be better if rewritten to remove the negatives.

  2. Emerald Rose says:

    I also couldn’t find the double negatives. Perhaps I didn’t pick them up. Anyhow, the first thing I did notice is the plural form of taxis, written as taxi’s. So Dunglish! I have tried for so many years to teach my students not to use apostrophes as a plural form, but it doesn’t seem to get through to them.

  3. Larry says:

    Unfortunately, and I don’t know where it’s coming from, but native speakers of English seem to be doing it more and more now, especially after vowels, after nouns that end in s (business’s? series’?!) and even when it’s the ending of a third-person singular verb!

  4. ed random says:

    @Larry

    http://www.edholden.com/random/apostrophes/

    http://www.apostropheabuse.com/

  5. Larry says:

    @Ed: I actually like errant apostrophes done in chalk on blackboard, because I can wipe them away in passing.

  6. Kees says:

    This nicely summarizes proper apostrophe usage

    http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

  7. Ludolph says:

    Zie ook: Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, van Lynn Truss (Penguin, ISBN 1-592-40203-8)
    Een aanrader voor elke, pardon my French, kommaneuker. Met gratis punctuation repair kit!

  8. Larry says:

    Truss gaat zelf te slordig met haar eigen regels om – kan haar niet serieus nemen.

  9. Jay Vos says:

    Whenever I’m stumped or just forget, I refer to Strunk & White’s “Elements of Style.” I still have my worn copy from my high school English class. And I’ve given it to Dutch friends and relatives who are learning English.

    Also I found this funny blog post about the use of apostrophes in “Beyond the Elements of Style”:

    http://beyondtheelementsofstyle.blogspot.com/2006/06/dreaded-apostrophe.html

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