A pair of x is/are

Pages: 123
@LB, I'll take the liberty of grading you

-Different words are spelled the same (do read, has read) or similarly (of, off, on, one)
1/2. Somewhat of a problem, but that's the price of having a lot of short words. Would you rather have most common words be 2-3 syllables long?
-Different words are pronounced the same/similar (there, their, they're, two, to, too, its, it's)
1
-Complex rules with many exceptions and even exceptions to the exceptions, which generally make it easier to just memorize thousands of words than memorize the rules
0. You're being a bit vague, is this about pronunciations?
-Many words which are from other languages and have been adopted into English unchanged
0. You complained just a moment ago about how bad it is that pineapple was adopted and changed. Make up your mind. And, why is this a problem either way?
-Highly contextual grammar
0. Is this about English being more analytic then synthetic? Are you aware that the other option is to have longer words that mean a bunch of things and have sentences where a whole bunch of things is implied.
-Many cultural expressions
1/2. Kind of annoying, but that's sort of the difference between a living and a dead language.
-Many words have no opposites
0. You mean how there is no "vincible" for "invincible" (apparently there is)? As with foreign words, why is this a problem exactly?
-Seemingly related words have completely irrelevant spelling and usage
1/2. irrelevant? I assume you meant unrelated. How much words are related is actually a thing I like the most about my (not English) language. But then this is kind of the same as the point of being an analytic vs synthetic language...
-Ease of ambiguity with sentences, especially with pronouns
-Difficult to properly express certain ideas in a compressed format (they took the test; one person or multiple people?)
1, but that's one point.
-Many words do not use the roots and bases you mention
-Many changes to words are irregular (person, people)
-Multiple different kinds of plural/possessive (person, people, persons, peoples, person's, people's, persons', peoples')
1. These are kind of the same point though. And I doubt there exists a natural language for which this would not be true....

So that adds up to 4.5/13 = a sad smiley face :(. Seriously though, you could fix/change most of this in English 2.0, but I'm not sure you'd actually want to speak it.
hamsterman wrote:
You're being a bit vague, is this about pronunciations?
Think spelling. I've yet to find spelling rules without exception. I've managed somehow to get my brain to where when I learn a new word I can remember how to spell it properly after only a few uses, but that's still memorization and not following rules that have anything to do with the word's bases, meaning, or pronunciation.
hamsterman wrote:
You complained just a moment ago about how bad it is that pineapple was adopted and changed. Make up your mind. And, why is this a problem either way?
I never said that pineapple was adopted or changed, you're putting words in my mouth. It's a problem because it just adds more exceptions to rules. I can understand maybe why in science they wouldn't change the names so that scientific research can be more easily understood in other languages, but having some of these hard-to-pronounce and hard to spell names from other languages is not ideal.
hamsterman wrote:
Is this about English being more analytic then synthetic? Are you aware that the other option is to have longer words that mean a bunch of things and have sentences where a whole bunch of things is implied.
I don't understand; what you suggest as the alternative is what I mean by "highly contextual grammar".
hamsterman wrote:
You mean how there is no "vincible" for "invincible" (apparently there is)? As with foreign words, why is this a problem exactly?
What's the opposite of "pride"? Unpride? Antipride? Maybe "shame"? But that goes with my point about inconsistent rules for changing state or tense.
hamsterman wrote:
irrelevant? I assume you meant unrelated. How much words are related is actually a thing I like the most about my (not English) language. But then this is kind of the same as the point of being an analytic vs synthetic language...
No, I did not mean "unrelated", I meant exactly what you quoted.
hamsterman wrote:
but that's one point.
I meant for the example to be on the first point, not the second. Here's an example for the second: there's this whole thing called poetry where people try to express an idea in a couple paragraphs worth of text, because apparently it's so hard to do that you get respected if you manage it. (Just think about how much redundancy is needed to properly express a given idea, such as my idea here :p)
Think spelling.
Spelling is a dual of pronunciation. I gave you 1 for that earlier, so you still get a 0.
I never said that pineapple was adopted or changed
That's true, though now that I think about it, is there such a thing as adopted and changed? (It's not adopted any more after you change it). I still don't know what sort of adoptions and changes you're talking about. Could you name a few adopted words and examples of how they could be changed?
highly contextual grammar
I understood this as a grammar where meaning of one word depends a lot on the structure of the whole sentence. My suggestion was to have more information per word. Then the downside is that a lot of information would be redundant and to reduce the redundancies, a lot of information would be implied.
What's the opposite of "pride"?
It's actually arguable whether it's "shame". To quote Avatar (the kids' tv show), pride is not the opposite of shame - it is the source of shame. That's sort of the thing - things are not quite as binary as you'd like them to be. Note that even "not good" and "bad" are different things. And even when your complaint is appropriate, is that a problem? I guess it is a bother when learning the language, but do you actually feel that this is hurting your ability to communicate clearly?
irrelevant
if you mean what you wrote, then I can only ask, irrelevant to what?
there's this whole thing called poetry where people try to express an idea in a couple paragraphs worth of text, because apparently it's so hard to do that you get respected if you manage it.
You can abuse any language. This sentence should be cut into several. Though I fail to notice what's ambiguous about it.
English is confusing. Especially when you've spent over a decade doing something an 'improper' way. I'm just now starting to say "He and I" instead of "me and him", and i've spent months forcing myself to say it right. And I still don't know when to use 'who' or 'whom'. I'm not even sure I care anymore.

One of my biggest complains about English is the absence of a gender free pronoun. (That's not entirely true, we have the word 'one', but it's not often used conversationally). Like, you would have to say "The child didn't want to disappoint his or her parents." French has the word 'on', which could take place of "his or her", and is used all the time conversationally and i absolutely love it. I really want to use that word in regular conversation
I think it's funny that the native English-speakers are the ones trying to convince the non-native speaker that English is hard.
The child didn't want to disappoint his or her parents.


The child didn't want to disappoint their parents?
Their is incorrect because it is plural, and must be matched with a plural object.
"The children didn't want to disappoint their parents" would be correct.

It's usually accepted to use 'their' as a gender free pronoun in conversation, but it's not correct in writing.
How about "The child didn't want to disappoint the parents"? Wouldn't "the" imply that the author is talking about his/her parents?

Also, do you have to take an English(native language) exam to finish high school? Something like high-school graduation exam or whatever it might be called - I know nothing about English or US education system. If so, I'd like to see last year exams, just out of curiosity.
But that's not very fluid. "The parents" could mean any set of parents, not necessarily the child's parents.

I had to take an English graduation exam to graduate high school. It wasn't too difficult. They make you correct some grammar, fill in some blanks, use context clues and stuff, and then there's a bunch of reading comprehension where you have to read a giant boring excerpt from a book or something then answer several questions about it.
It's not as difficult as it is mind numbing.
closed account (D80DSL3A)
I think it would be "The child didn't want to disappoint his parents".
Use of the 'masculine generic' is common in English, though it angers feminists to no end.
Last edited on
That doesn't accurately express the fact that the gender is ungiven.
Say "shkler parents", then.
Topic archived. No new replies allowed.
Pages: 123