How did YOU master English?

A porter in a British hotel comes upon an American tourist impatiently jabbing at the button for the lift.
"Sir, the lift will be here in a moment."
"Lift? Lift?" replies the American. "Oh, you mean the elevator."
"No sir, here we call it a lift."
"Well, as it was invented in the United States, it’s called an elevator."
"Yes sir, but as the language was invented here, it’s called a lift."

Courtesy: Reader's Digest

 

I had decent writing skills until I started watching hollywood films. We're taught British English here in India, after watching hollywood movies I ended up with a hybrid of British and American English that I'd call mongrel english.

 

With the except of some crude remarks by Zhoom, this post is giving a lot of people a chance to express. No matter what country you are from, feel free to post your interesting insights.

This is my post, not that of Zhoom, so please forgive the ignorant criticisms given here.

 

My ignorant criticisms were simply a rebuttal to another's ignorant criticisms of the whole DP writer community (including yourself)...I'm surprised you didn't rebut yourself. Instead you choose to pick a battle with me...Well done.

 

NO PROOF, STILL INTERRUPTING, ONE MORE AND A REPORT GOES IN, READ Q\A RULES (Your strikes are used up)


This reply is not for your benefit as it falls on deaf ears.

I support two main classes of writers.

1. Those starting to learn to improve their skills
2. Experienced career writers, not stagnating, but earning what they want, or moving upward to do so.

----------------So thank you for your unwanted urge to post-----------------

 

I believe my posts are clearly supporting the overall community while injecting some humor. Some of your regular respected posters even supported me in my rebuttals with subsequent humorous posts.

I'm disappointed that someone of your stature would stoop to erroneous reporting for discussion in a discussion forum.

As for your goals, mine are similar...I encourage learning, community development and have assisted numerous people on this forum find their feet within my areas of expertise.

 

Please don't turn this into a debate for some useless comments. The English level of proficiency has remarkably deteriorated in DP. This is due to the huge number of non-native and bad-educated (3rd world) people. The old good people just left because they don't want to mess with the new crowd.

Let's bring something new instead of arguing.

 

Well Omar, I respect your ability in the writing of blogs. Since the post subject is not word usage in a posting, but mastering English please help get this back on track.

Explain why you prefer writing for blog posting versus articles, and if English skills are more important in one than the other. Being American born, I cannot answer that, whereas your input might be insightful, plus helpful.



-----thanks------

 

One book I would surely reccomend: Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis. This single book helped me more than all my English Classes at School.

 

thanks vexed, that is what i am looking for in a reply. When a writer can attribute something to helping master english at a higher level.

 

I keep writing in English, that is how I am improving it.

 

I paid attention to my Grammar teachers. Being a wide reader always helps develop your vocabulary and regular writing helps improve communication skills.

 

Personally I do not feel that you'll ever master unless you learn it as a small child. However I think reading as much as you can would be the best way to go about this.

 

I would like someone to address the issue of either UK or US based slang. Can it be a hindrance?

A few years ago I was being filmed by the BBC with their camera Jeep ahead and communications on my seat. I was driving a fast 1963 Corvette of mine, at the curved General Motors proving grounds, a highly sloped track. While putting the pedal to the metal, I heard, "Bring the Bloody Bonnet closer!" It took more than a couple seconds translating, to figure out that it meant the darn car hood.

Do you see slang, a problem? I know the first word all non US hockey players learn.

 

Well dyadvisor, in England, the word bonnet is not a slang word. It is actually the English word for the 'hood', of a car. If you look at a car manual in England they will actually use the term bonnet for the 'hood'. It is a bit like the elevator/lift thing. Bonnet is originally the name given to a woman's hat from I think Victorian times, maybe earlier, where the brim of the hat is quite large, and falls over the face of the woman slightly. I guess that there were similarities with the way a car's 'bonnet' falls over the face of a car!

The fact that so many words are different in English and American must be difficult for some people though. I think if you grew up in England it is easier, because you learn the English words, and you pick up the other American meanings through popular culture and television.

 

And I believe that the ideal world of your dreams would be one where only "blue-bloods" like you mingled and formed a closed community, which nobody could infiltrate? For your kind information a 3rd world country named India has a better education record as compared to America. We have a better economy which is based upon real money and essential reserve backs ups as against the credit-funded economy of America. We have the best Engineering Colleges in the world and a large part of people who manage to study up to Graduation take up Engineering and Medicine specialization.

I have taken America's name so many times because that is one country which is considered to be the best (in many ways) - otherwise I totally love America (sans it's foreign policies) for the opportunity it offers to every human without discriminating on any basis.

Omarabid - that's your name, right? So, I assume you are a Muslim and though these discussions don't belong to the copywriting section, still I would like to mention that Islam is one religion which advocates complete equality of opportunity for all humans irrespective of race, color and birthplace.

Just for the record, (and if you've not already noticed that ) I take severe objection to your use of the words bad educated and 3rd world in the same breath(line). I would like to remind you that the zeores that you like to add behind figures when you talk of x-figure incomes came from a 3rd world person. In fact there are hundreds of such achievements which I can recount, but probably having spent your entire life in your "highly educated(!!)" group of "real writers" (or whatever you mean by the "good old people"), you wouldn't know much about the world of mere mortals.

</end of rant>

 

IT IS REALLY GREAT TO SEE SOMEONE EXTREMELY PROUD OF THEIR HERITAGE, so thanks for the encouraging post above. One point you have missed, not being from my side of the fence. I spend a fair amount of time with two groups of Indians. As you know, yours, which to me are writers wanting to improve their skills and wanting to become even rightfully proud of themselves and their county. The second group are born Indians that have moved to the US. These comprise six of my eight medical specialists. One proudly wears his turban.

The feature they all share is politeness. Overall, I do not want to get into discussions about origin, but the French, and certainly many American citizens do not have this trait.

In writing, Indians are then given an advantage. It is much easier for them to express content in writing, through the eyes of how the reader will benefit. Out are the "I" uses, replaced with "You."

So please, both the writing, and medicine world need more like you, home or over here. Indians, from India --not American native Indians, no relation-- are not the ones depleting our welfare resources. In fact, over here $3,000,000 yearly wage medical specialists contribute close to half their income. The US government, then squanders much on those who are too lazy to help themselves.

Continue your postings, as this post has taken in some very quality concepts. I believe this forum section is better than ever before.

Many of the "old timers", found they were a useless addition. -------------------that is not a loss, but less obstruction-----------------

 

J3r That i know, but did not then, Currently I own 5 British luxury classics. They are a 1959 Rolls Royce, 1963 Bentley (from a Sly Stalone movie-"Get Carter"), 1963 Rolls Royce, 1967 Rolls Royce, and a 1974 Daimler. The last similar to those used by your Royal Queen, and used as 4 of the cars in Princess Di's funeral. So yes, I see the word "bonnet" very common in manuals. However, If I needed to replace the front distinguished emblem piece, I would call a certain place here for a hood ornament.

---------just might know more than YOU think I do... need any information on collector Corvettes, like the one with the split-window?------------Are you any relation to someone mentioned in an above post? Similar bloody attitude-------

 

You saw my name, but not my country? Okay, I'm from a third world country. I don't know about India, but I can only believe figures. When I see India per capita is $1K, what does that mean? It means that there are millions of poor people in India that don't find their lunch. So it's hard to speak about education.

There are other places in India more developed. Think Hong-Kong in China. You may be raised their, but don't forget that this is not India, it's just a small part. The same holds for the US, it has bad universities; however, they happen to hold most of the Top 100 list in their lands.

Back to the discussion. There are two kinds of 3rd world. Growing countries and into more darkness countries. I belong to the second and in the last ten years, the educational level has deteriorated significantly that a bachelor can't even read this post.

Finally, my point was, If you spend a huge amount (time + money) on education and if you don't spend. What are the results? Both population are going to be well-educated?

Certainly exception occurs but we are talking about the average.

 

First of all, I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. If you mean to loosely associate the word "bad-educated" to people in third world countries, think again. I know many people from 3rd world countries all over the world who write better than the average American. I know Indian writers (not booker kinds but the average freelancer of $1/100w) who can give most "gold old folks" a run for their money. One either know English well or doesn't - that does not equate to his education levels in any way. My husband is an Engineer and is now a top manager in India's largest automobile company - thousands of people work under him and they roll out vehicles worth millions everyday - process includes latest robots and Japanese cutting edge technologies. If you heard him speak English, you would instantly classify him as an illiterate.

As for the Indian per capita income, pls don't get me started on that. Just pls keep in mind that India is a land of stark contrasts and would hold many surprises for those who judge it by the Indian stereotype of Hollywood or have the snake-elephant-naked people-dirt image in mind.

I think that we both agree that calling anybody badly educated and attributing that to the country's economic condition is on an open forum in bad taste, to say the least.

Now that we have put forth our points, I guess we can get back to the topic of the thread.