Strange Word...

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The Grauniad was once so renowned for its typos that it might well be considered a poor arbiter.

MichaelG.

This link explains the capitalisation in the French language:-

Capitalisation

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Thanks for that ... I didn’t know

MichaelG.

Don't confuse the execution with the intent!

MichaelG.

Yes, but if instinct had been silent on the subject, would you have raised it here?

Edited By Mick B1 on 17/11/2020 13:28:13

It's better mow!

the words loosen and un-loosen mean the same - courtesy of BBC radio 2!

Why learn a foreign language when there are enough anomalies in English to confuse us for a whole lifetime.

Teacher: "Sugar is the only word in the English language wher the 'S' gives a 'sh' sound without the need for an 'H'.

Student from back of class: "Are you sure?"

Geoff

Which was fine until I got to "differently than in English". Differently from, perhaps to, but never than.

Martin -

" Differently than... " is American, but judging by the very many Americans we hear on BBC R4 these days, not universal to them.

Someone who teaches English in a Swedish business-college once told me many non-native English speakers use US English spelling, constructions and accents because they hone their English by watching easily-available American-made films and TV shows, and of course " soshul meeja ", Wicked-feet, Goggles etc.. It does sound odd though when the Texan drawl in a current-affairs programme is that of a representative of a government that officially hates the USA.

Geoff -

I suspect virtually all long-established languages are rich in anomalies. At least English, which is a mongrel language of course, does not assign nouns genders at birth. One of the hardest things I found when taught French at school, was trying to remember le or la; the other main problem being trying to remember obscure tenses of the irregular ones that seemed the majority of verbs.

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A friend who is a senior-grade medical lecturer has quite a fund of " howlers " from students' essays. One she quotes is, "Mrs. A- was eliminated with a bed-pan ". I bet The Godfather never thought of that way!

One she found rather touching though, was a Nigerian student's habit of starting his with " Once upon a time..." She told me she asked him why. It transpired he had had only rudimentary English lessons at school, so sought any English literature to help him advance himself. The only problem was that for some reason, almost all the books he could find were fiction stories for young children.

Whilst one young lady I know, with a strong regional accent, moved abroad to teach English... " Aye ", said a mutual friend, "We reckon it's Lancastrian she's teaching the Italians! "