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Setor de Cincias Humanas, Letras e Artes

Departamento de Letras Estrangeiras Modernas

HE281 Lngua Inglesa Oral IV

Prof.: Clarissa Menezes Jordo

2016/2

E-mail: clarissa@ufpr.br

Office: r.1024

10 COMMON MISTAKES FROM NON-NATIVE ENGLISH

SPEAKERS THAT WE SHOULD LEARN TO APPRECIATE
http://matadornetwork.com/life/10-common-mistakesnon-native-english-speakers-learn-appreciate/

BY ELKE WAKEFIELD
APRIL 5, 2016

Downloaded July 29th

LANGUAGE IS GIVEN TO US so that we may corrupt it. Like that time we got
rid of the word thou in the 18th century. Or cut off a bit of the word obviously and
started saying obvs instead. Or redefined banger, so it didnt even have anything
to do with sausages anymore (though like sausages, banger probably has a
shelf-life).
We use words and return them warped. Sometimes the mutation never leaves
the safety of a relationship or friendship group (Me and my mates call each
other Moogs, haha). But frequently the mutation sticks. We have selfie. We
have selfie stick. Unorganised. Literally no rules for literally. Text as a verb. Can
and will instead of ought and shall. The near loss of whom. The complete loss of
ye and thou. In short, we have the fact that English once looked like this: Fder
re e eart on heofonum. And now looks like this: She was lit AF.
Its been almost 1,000 years since English was Old English, a language that,
with its grammatical gender so the sun was feminine, the moon was
masculine, and girl was neuter, obviously and brain-twizzling declensions
so the adopted over 10 different forms depending on what it was doing in a
sentence looked more like German than modern English.
What will English look in 100, 500 or 1,500 years? No idea. Its not like betting
on the horses. Unless youre willing to predict the outcome of millions of fleas
racing on millions of horses racing on millions of different race tracks millions of
times every day.

However, given the number of second-language English speakers (510 million)

far outnumbers the number of first-language speakers (340 million), it should be
obvious where we look for inspiration.
Second-language English speak just as well as first-language English speakers.
They are creative and resourceful, perhaps even more so than those born into
English, because they have to think harder. Sometimes, they demand that
English follow her own rules; other times, they bring metaphors or patterns of
grammatical thought across from their first language.
Theyve already given us so much. Now, its time to pause, take stock and
celebrate their contribution.
Heres a short list of just some of their innovations, that some people take as
mistakes, but I believe we should take as contributions.

1. I didnt eat nothing and other double negatives

For example:
Camilo: Does anybody know where my Toddy biscuits are?
Frank: I didnt eat nothing!
Or
KW: Can you tell me something?
Gilbert: I cannot
KW: Cant tell me nothing!
Double negatives are supposed to be a no-no (lol) in English, apparently as a
result of the transposition of mathematical principles into language, so that if -1 x
-1 = 1, then not x no = yes.
Firstly, basically all English speakers use double negatives. Some notable
examples include: Shakespeare (I never was, nor never will be), Chaucer (He
nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde), Jamaicans, Rihanna (I wasnt looking for
nobody when you looked my way), the Rolling Stones (cant get no
satisfaction), and those guys who think they have a really subtle sense of
aesthetics (shes not not hot), etc.
Secondly, isnt adding a negative actually subtraction?
-1 + -1 = -2.
-yes + -yes = -2 yes

2. I have 27 years
English speakers have a habit of confusing themselves with the qualities they
possess or feel. I am cold. I am hot. I am 20. I am tired. I am right. I am hungry.
Traditionally, the correct response to this nonsense has been Hello Hungry! Im
Dad. However, an ESL vanguard is formulating an even better response to the
tyranny of the verb to be.
Some non-native English speakers, particularly those from a French, Italian or
Spanish background languages that dont rely on only one verb to express
everything have begun to say they have X years, as opposed to they are X.
I have 27 years clearly makes more sense than I am 27. You are not 27. 27 is
27.
Moreover, I have 27 years makes your years your own, and not you your
years. This is empowering. You can easily imagine the years rolling around
between your fingers, like little marbles, incontrovertibly there, but not definitive
of who you are.

3. Touristic
For example:
Lakshmi: Were going to Koh Samui. Do you want to join us?
Gerhard: Koh Samui is too touristic for me. I prefer to have a more chill and
authentic experience. For me, Ko Phayam is better.
Touristic is beloved by Europeans everywhere who need a despective adjective
to describe travel. Of course, English does have an adjective for tourist
touristy, but its informal and unconvincing. It sounds like the kind of thing a baby
would say, whereas touristic sounds scientific, almost as though it could be
precisely measured or quantified.

4. Thanks, God!
For example:
Gupta: Did you make it to the station on time?
Ignacio: Thanks, God yes!
God: My pleasure, Ignacio.

Thank god!, the more traditional form of this expression, is an interjection or

exclamation, and doesnt have much to do with God. There is quite some
distance between the speaker and god, so that it is more of a vaguely held wish
or feeble command.
Grammatically speaking, the thank in thank god acts as a verb, of which God is
the object.
However, some second-language speakers prefer the more personal Thanks,
God! in which God is directly addressed and thanked. Thanks, God! sounds
like real gratitude, as though youre standing opposite God and thanking him for
the club sandwich he just gave you.

5. Hope it helps!
For example:
Dear all,
Ive always wondered this
What type of dogs do you have?
Tammy
Dear Tammy
2 x Pug.
1 x Kelpie.
Hope it helps!
Sami
Dear Sami,
Hope what helps?
Tammy
Hope it helps! is the sign-off of countless second-language English speakers on
forums the world over. Its a very slight innovation, but an important one. It is an
impersonal pronoun, substituting for a noun. But which noun is it substituting for
in the above? We know that the writer is implicitly referring to their response as
the thing they hope helps, but they havent actually mentioned it, so it sounds
kind of mysterious.
In the past, we would have laboured with Hope this helps, with this referring to
the advice just mentioned, or the more complete I hope this advice helps or
This is my advice I hope it helps. But Hope it helps! is wonderfully selfcontained and inscrutable. It is also so clearly brimming with good will and
humility that you simply cannot fault it.

When I read hope it helps, I think of a smiling friend waving at me, then turning
and disappearing over the horizon. I try to call them back, but theyre already
gone, and the only evidence I have they were here is this moonstone in my hand
and a feeling of utter peace.

6. Isnt it? as universal question tag

For example:
Maximilian: Maximilian is a powerful and great man. Isnt it?
Francessca: They dont really know what theyre doing promoting Maximilian.
Isnt it?
Question tags are when you make a statement and then turn your statement into
a question. For example, Youre reading this, arent you? They are used to
keep a conversation rolling or to prompt your interlocutor to agree or disagree
with you. Ordinarily, the question tag should agree with the subject and verb in
the preceding statement because thats the statement youre querying.
So, in the first sentence, we would normally say isnt he, because it is Max we
are referring to and he is the pronoun used to refer something male. In the
second sentence, we would normally say do they because do and not is is
the verb in question.
Of course, its easy to see how isnt it arose. When you speak a new language,
certain phrases embed themselves in your head and mouth, becoming your ums
and ahs. Theyre so sayable and useful that they become more than the sum of
their parts; they become words unto themselves. For the speaker, isnt it is a
kind of catch-all dont you agree? Any possible statement could precede isnt
it?
Thats not a dog. Isnt it?
Im a bit late today. Isnt it?
In effect, isnt it is powerful, almost existentially challenging. It makes you
reflect on more than the previous statement. It is the kind of word that seems to
dissolve under close inspection. What is it, after all, if the referent is not
immediately on hand? Some kind of impersonal thing, compressed and zombielike, lurking underneath the network of signs? You find yourself lost in language,
searching desperately for a way out. Eventually it loses all meaning, and all you
hear is the physicality of the word, i-t, which, at the end of the day, is nothing
more than pulmonary pressure and the movement of tongue on teeth.

7. Some gums. Counting the uncountable.

For example:
Samantha: I want some gums. Anyone have some gums?
The reason some gums didnt used to fly is because gum is considered an
uncountable noun. Uncountable nouns are abstract things like love and hate,
or diffuse things like air, which apparently cannot be counted. They dont take a
plural form.
Or at least they didnt.
Because why shouldnt more than one gum be gums? For most of us, gum is no
longer a formless mass of tree resin; rather, its neat little bullets of flavoured
spearmint we dispense to friends on a night out, easily counted and obviously
plural.
To go further, why not some golds or some sorghums? Quantifying
uncountables is thrilling and something we all engage in. It makes the abstract
and the timeless palpably specific and attainable.
Just look at the arrogance of the following:
GUM. RICE. MONEY. WATER. ICE. HONEY
And compare it with the humility and graciousness of the following: gums, rices,
moneys, waters, ices, honeys.
Counting the uncountable is empowering. Counting the uncountables even more
so.

8. Explain me this
For example:
Wendy: Please explain me why its like this!
Latha: Why on earth you should need to explain [something] to [somebody], and
in that exact order, I have no idea.
Explain me this is the greatest example of linguistic austerity since everyone
started abbrieving in 2010.
Explaining [something] to [somebody] is overly complicated and painful to
perform, reminiscent of a hungry labrador doing an obstacle course under timed
conditions.

On the other hand, explain me this is emotionally immediate and potent; a cry
for lucidity and understanding that cannot be resisted. It is a whippet doing the
100m sprint.
Speakers of American English have done a similar thing with the verb write.
Write me!, as in, dont forget to write me!, drops the preposition to, giving us
a marvelous blurring of object and indirect object. Of course, youll write to me,
but in doing so, youll write me, capture me, sing me, shape me. And Ill write
you too, well write each other, conjuring our own inky world into existence.
Similarly, with explain me this, there is the sense in which the person being
spoken to is being asked to provide an account of the speaker, or to explain
the speaker. And how to explain a person!? What adjectives can you heap up
around them that will do more than describe or define them; that will instead
explain them? What facts are relevant? What words will make a person plain?

9. Continuous continuous
For example:
Waltraud: And when I was being young, I was drinking a lot of beer, I was
celebrating a lot, I was going to discos with my friends. Now, Im working a lot,
Im eating muesli, Im calling my grandmother.
Progressive or continuous tenses, formed by adding -ing to a verb, are used
when an action is ongoing or incomplete. Theres something loose and
undefined about progressives; they appear to provide background colour to the
real foreground of hard events.
Ample use of the progressive is a particularly German quirk. Germans dont
have a progressive tense in German, so they love to use it when they speak
English. The effect is fantastic nothing is ever completed or perfected as past,
present and future leak out in all directions into an unbroken stream of action.

10. Dear Sirs

For example:
Dear Sirs,
I am most interested in joining your esteemed establishment.
Blessings,
Joseph.

Dear Joseph,
Check out our website for further details.
Warm regards,
Fernwood.
English dropped gender for pretty much everything except ships, which are
obviously ladies (on account of the prow) and dogs and cats, which are
obviously male and female respectively (this being a merely scientific and not
grammatical distinction).
We also dont have properly formal modes of address. If you want to show
respect, you cant simply inflect all your verbs in a special way, as in Spanish, or
draw on myriad, subtle honorifics, as in Japanese. Instead, you have to look
very serious and employ words that arent formally formal, but kind of sound
formal, like I am well, thank you, and yourself? Isnt the weather fine today? And
yourself?
Which is why Sirs is such a fantastic innovation. Sirs originates from the fact, in
many languages, when you add women to men, you get only men. So in French,
for example, if you wanted to address a group of mainly women, with a couple of
men, you would use the masculine plural pronoun ils and not the feminine
elles.
The Sirs phenomenon is captured below:
10,000 men = Sirs
10,000 women = Madams
5,000 men + 5,000 women = Sirs
8,000 women + 2,000 men = Sirs
9,999 women + 1 man = Sirs
Dear Sirs is a grammatical import from languages that do have gender, of
which there are many French, Spanish, Italian, German, Hindi.
However, in English, sirs is so thoroughly antiquated and denatured that it
doesnt seem to have much to do with men anymore. Rather, sirs should be
understood as a new class of person. A Sir is a person, male, female or trans,
you wish to show respect.

11. A few that probably wont catch on but should

From an Ecuadorian chapters for television episodes, a direct translation of
the Spanish captulos.

From a German Its very cheek-in-tongue, which adds an extra layer of

tongue-in-cheek to tongue-in-cheek.
From an Argentine have you proved Fernet? (The Spanish verb probar
means to try or tasteit also means to prove).