Re: Tips on listening to complex sentences with double negatives, etc.

Ant_222 — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:36:42 GMT

Well, would you have trouble perceiving this sentence in your native language? I suppose, no. That's the solution: learn English until you develop "a hardware support" for it, i.e until language processing is shifted beneath the conscious.

BTW, double negation, while working in Boolean logic, doesn't always apply to predicates! So:

«I don't know why he shouldn't have left her alone» is not equal to
«I know why he should have left her alone»

HTH

Re: Change English As You Wish

Cool Breeze — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 13:20:32 GMT

Thank you to all those who have posted their suggestions to my little imagination game. Some have taken it very seriously thinking they would have to relearn English after the 'changes'. This was meant to be just a game, not for those wo take everything seriously, and of course in this game everybody automatically speaks and writes the new English fluently without having to learn anything.

In the colonial days several European languages got exported as taking peoples' lands from them was considered a virtue and something to be proud of. This resulted in some languages being more dominant than others. Spanish and French were the most important languages till the end of the 19th century when the USA rose to be No. 1 in world politics and commerce. The foundation for English as the lingua franca had been laid.

The world should be thankful. There is no such thing as an easy language; every language is difficult if the learner aims at perfection. However, there are grammatically and structurally far more complicated languages than English, and we should consider ourselves lucky it's only the spelling that drives us nuts about English, not inflections.

Here are the changes I would make to English:

A. Spelling: Grammar Geek, Alienvoord and Englishuser would all make changes to the spelling, and indeed so would I. I think Englishuser puts it nicely: "I'd certainly change the spelling of words with an 'irregular' spelling, that is, words whose pronunciation can't be determined basing on how they're spelt." I would also accept more than one spelling for a word in many cases.

There isn't enough space and I don't have enough time and patience to cover all the tens of thousands of words this entails, but here are some examples of new spellings:

OLD                                 NEW
fight                                  fite
perceive                           perceive, percieve
tough                                 tuf
though                              tho
knight                                 nite
caste                                 cast
pace                                 pace, pase
write                                 rite

B. Grammar: English grammar is so uncomplicated due to 500 years of simplifying foreign influence (200 years of Vikings and 300 years of Normans) that English grammar really couldn't be made much simpler even if it were an artificial language. However, as a foreigner I'll continue the foreign influence and enforce the following changes.

1. I will get rid of the third person singular s and has. Henceforth we will say: He speak English. He have a car. He have asked it twice. The s is a totally needless relic and Swedish, another Germanic language, needs no verb endings for any person even though it is more complicated than English in other respects.

2. There will be no irregular verbs from now on with the exception of to be and the defective or modal auxiliaries, which will remain unchanged. Examples of new English:

OLD                                 NEW
He saw us.                        He seed us.
He has written a letter.    He have rited a letter.
Who wrote it?                   Who/Hu rited it?
I haven't hit him.               I haven't hitted him.
I ran too fast.                    I runned too fast.

3. I'll return English to its pre-Shakespearean state with regard to questions and negations. Henceforth, English will be like the other Germanic languages and questions will be asked without the totally unnecessary do auxiliary:

OLD                                  NEW
Do you speak English? Speak you English?
I didn't see him.                  I seed not him.
Did you do it?                   Doed you it?

4. All past participles can be used attributively before nouns: a rited report, a catched fish, two asked questions, a surrendered country.

5. There will be no irregular plurals for nouns:

OLD                                     NEW
two men                               two mans
many children                      many childs
these phenomena              these phenomenons
two geese                           two gooses

6. Any uncountable noun can be used as a countable if the need arises:

OLD                                    NEW
two pieces of advice         two advices
two news items                  two newses

7. I'll leave the articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and adverbs as they are. There are countless idioms where the articles are used contrary to reason and logic, but non-natives' incorrect usage seldom gives rise to misunderstandings. Besides, who am I to deprive English of all its fascination?
Those who don't like sentences like He runned too fast have my permission to say He runned too fastly if they prefer that.

8. Since there are so few inflections, the word order will just have to remain as it it with a few exceptions. For the sake of clarity, some minor changes will take effect: You Only Live Twice has to be renamed (and rerecorded) You Live Only Twice. (Fortunately Nancy Sinatra is still alive, she can rerecord it next week!)

9. Some changes in clause equivalents would make English more exact, but I am reluctant to make them. I'll let English remain somewhat inexact. It is plain impossible to make it exact in every respect without more inflections, and more inflections would make learning English a more laborious task for non-natives.

Consider these examples:

Having said that, he left the room. (After he had said that, he left the room.)
"Having said that, he did win Wimbledon two years ago." (A tennis commentator has said something slightly negative about a player, then decides to mention a positive thing about him. The sentence does not usually mean: After he had said that, he won Wimbledon two years ago. But of course it could mean that, too.)

English abounds in ambiguity and native speakers disagree on what common verbs such as the defective auxiliaries mean in some contexts. I'll let all that be as it is, I know when to give up.

Vocabulary: I'll add some short words that can be used to indicate surprise, disbelief etc. in spoken English in sentences like: He goed there? You like not it! Haven't you seed it? I won't write the words here, though, I just think English could and should have more finesse and be more expressive and colorful.

I won't delete a single word from the vocabulary, on the contrary, I'll add a way of forming a word denoting a person from a town or a village. English already has many such words but on the whole they are rather impractical: a Liverpudlian, a Memphian. Some are easier: a Londoner, a New Yorker. But what do you call a person who lives in Timbuktu?

From now on, the ending will always be er: a Liverpooler, a Memphiser, an Uppsalaer, a Hong Konger, a Tokyoer, a Timbuktuer. This will add hundreds of thousands of words to English. I'll also let you call a Swede a Swedener and a Thai a Thailander if you wish.

I have simplified the grammar a little and that should help non-native learners in particular. I have left the basic structure of the language untouched except for the disappearance of do in questions and negations. But even this is actually a minor thing since it just returns English to the early 16th century.

I have increased the vocabulary a great deal. Every three-year-old Finn knows what to call a person from Timbuktu once he is told there is such a place. English-speaking kids should be able to do the same.

Cheers
CB

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Re: Tips on listening to complex sentences with double negatives, etc.

Re: Change English As You Wish