... } As for "could care less", from my experience I reject the } idea that it expresses some sort of irony. The times I've } heard it, it has been said with exactly the intonation } that's used for saying the correct

This must surely be a good moment to abandon ... and would probably call it a mistake if I did. Indeed, this may be the only resource the print writer has for representing the infamous rising-intonation-at-the-end-of-a-sentence? I can see now that

Hi, Being a non native speaker, I'd like to know how native English read to learn, in particular how to deal with English spelling (also, how do they learn to write) If you're interested in the whole sorry history of educational fads

} }>They presented four phrases and asked me which one was correct: } }>(flag#1 = red/white/blue; flag#2 = green/yellow) } }>1. The two flags were red, white and blue and green and yellow. }>2. The two flags were red, white and blue,

Another question related to that is something I've always wondered: How do you handle key information that's conveyed only by the speaker's intonation? Sometimes straight transcription can make someone appear to have said almost the

You can't speak for readers with comparatively low English literacy ... comma is required, but without them the instruction lacks clarity. But that's not grammar. That's style. Once again we stray into the thickets of terminology. What