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)
Tags: Amsterdam
July 15th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I didn’t see any double negatives, although plenty of clunky sentences that would be better if rewritten to remove the negatives.
July 18th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
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.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
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!
July 27th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
@Larry
http://www.edholden.com/random/apostrophes/
http://www.apostropheabuse.com/
July 29th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
@Ed: I actually like errant apostrophes done in chalk on blackboard, because I can wipe them away in passing.
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
This nicely summarizes proper apostrophe usage
http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:33 pm
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!
August 4th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Truss gaat zelf te slordig met haar eigen regels om – kan haar niet serieus nemen.
August 31st, 2009 at 12:43 pm
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