Search results for 'tag:Plurals tag:Dialects' matching tags 'Plurals' and 'Dialects'

Re: craving respect

Kooyeen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:45:18 GMT

Respect is for high schools. You might want to say "hot" instead of "beautiful" or "yo" instead of "hi". Note: you might still be a dork anyway.
What you are probably talking about is "integration". If you live in London and talk like a Texan for no reason, you are likely to have some serious problems in your head (unless you do that for an entertaining purpose). On the other hand, if you move to Texas and plan to live there, marry a Texan girl, work with Texans, etc., and you can in some way change your dialect and pick up their one... I don't see any reason why you should avoid picking it up. You should, if you can. Because you're gonna be a Texan too, if you want to.
Then there are some people who just say weird things for no apparent reason, things on one else around them ever say, and no one knows why the heck they have to come up with those words... I remember reading a guy (native speaker) realized he'd always pronounced iron as "I run". Fora instead of forum doesn't seem to be 100% wrong, because Merriam-Webster lists it as a plural, but I believe the vast majority of internet users would never say it. It's just forums. So I need to quote your sentence...

Anonymous
For example, a few weeks ago, I wrote the word "fora", as the plural for "forum"

...for those who haven't realized yet you actually wrote fora, so that they can laugh too, like all the others. Hahaha. Kidding.

Re: Corpora: Native discovery

Kooyeen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:08:32 GMT

I agree with Jim. Native speakers decide what is correct. Of course, there are so many "kinds" of native speakers that you can't know everything about everyone's English usage... and not even about your own dialect, sometimes.

Teacher: No, "my hair are black" is not ok. You have to use the singular, "my hair is black"
Student: But I found out the plural is ok in some parts of England...
Teacher: Well, I don't know... it's so odd. Maybe that's true, but where I come from, Los Angeles, it's not used at all, I believe.
Student: But if it's used in England it means it's not wrong.
Teacher: Maybe not in that dialect... but that's not standard English...
Student: What do you mean by standard English?
Teacher: The kind of English you are most likely to hear on TV, or hear people use... where I come from. Or the one I use myself.
Student: What makes you think the English you use is the standard one, and some dialects in England are not?
Teacher: I don't know... maybe because it's the only kind of English I know, and the only one it makes sense for me to teach?
Student: But then you are forgetting lots of common features, and calling then non-standard...Look at these results you can get from this corpus... 2,780 results for "hair are black"... and 5,990 for "hair is black"...
Teacher: Those results seem a little off to me... I mean, who collected that information, how, and and where?
Student: It's a linguist...
Teacher: Ok, but those results don't reflect the actual usage I've always heard in Los Angeles... and on TV, or in American English in General, for that matter.
Student: But you can't discard those authoritative results just because...
Teacher: I don't give a damn about your results! I teach the variety I know, not every dialect in the world, checking corpora here and there! If you want me as your teacher, you are gonna be learning my variety and have me as a model for your English, otherwise... go find another teacher, you standard idiot! My dialect will be the standard English you'll learn, Is this clear enough?
Student: Clear? Hmm. What do you mean by stand...
*POW* *SLAP* *CRACK* *BAM*
Student: Ouch!

Re: gone were/was

Kooyeen — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:15:39 GMT

New2grammar
can't believe what's on the Internet!

Do you want some more examples? I can give you a lot! You won't believe it! Yeah, the net is a mess.

As Jim said, in some languages hair is plural (mine too, and that's why I tend to make that mistake and use the plural). But on the other hand, optilang showed you how a certain "strange" expression can be normal in some dialects. Interesting, eh?

Re: Plural of s = s'es?

Pter — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:24:01 GMT

The Chinese language has many dialects. We all share the same set of characters but these characters are pronounced differently in different dialects. Same characters different pronunciations. We don't say the characters belong to any one particular dialect. They are just Chinese characters. You can't say Mandarin characters or Cantonese characters because these terms do not make sense. For example, the numbers one, two, three are written as one, two, and three horizontal strokes respectively in Chinese "ä¸ äº ä¸" (can you see these characters?) They are pronounced as yi1 er4 san1 in Mandarin and jat7 ji6 sam1 in Cantonese. These are not exact transliteration though. Chinese is a tonal language and the numbers are used to indicate the tone. Mandarin has four tones while Cantonese has nine (some say six depending on which method you use to indicate the tones). So, everyone can read the same Chinese book but they read them differently.

Re: Plural of s = s'es?

Yoong Liat — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:02:07 GMT

Pter
Yes, I understand that. But this usage would be very rare and most likely not in shortform.

We don't use Mandarin to refer to the Chinese language. Mandarin is one spoken dialect of the Chinese language, albeit the official one and is taught all over the country. It refers to the spoken language, not the writing. The PinYin system commonly used for Mandarin is a way to transliterate the sound.

It refers to the spoken language, not the writing. (Could you please elaborate on this? I believe Mandarin is the official Chinese dialect, both written and spoken.)

Re: Plural of s = s'es?

Pter — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:08:14 GMT

Yes, I understand that. But this usage would be very rare and most likely not in shortform.

We don't use Mandarin to refer to the Chinese language. Mandarin is one spoken dialect of the Chinese language, albeit the official one and is taught all over the country. It refers to the spoken language, not the writing. The PinYin system commonly used for Mandarin is a way to transliterate the sound.

I suppose most languages are based on alphabetical systems. Chinese and only a handful are exceptions.

Re: Where is peoples used instead of people?

Hoa Thai — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:52:41 GMT

Hi Jackson,

"In the Middle Ages âpeoplesâ was not an uncommon word, but later writers grew wary of it because âpeopleâ has a collective, plural meaning which seemed to make âpeoplesâ superfluous. It lived on in the sense of ânationsâ (âthe peoples of the worldâ) and from this social scientists (anthropologists in particular) derived the extended meaning âethnic groupsâ (âthe peoples of the upper Amazon Basinâ). However, in ordinary usage âpeopleâ is usually understood to be plural, so much so that in the bad old days when dialect humor was popular having a speaker refer to âyou peoplesâ indicated illiteracy. If you are not referring to national or ethnic groups, it is better to avoid âpeoplesâ and use âpeople.â " - http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/peoples.html.

Cheers,
Hoa Thai

Re: correct sentence??

Ruslana — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 10:29:06 GMT

From answers.com:

Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive form hisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone). These forms reflect the tendency of speakers of vernacular dialects to regularize irregular patterns found in the corresponding standard variety. In Standard English, the pattern of reflexive pronoun forms shows slightly irregular patterning; all forms but two are composed of the possessive form of the pronoun and âself or âselves, as in myself or ourselves. The exceptions are himself and themselves, which are formed by attaching the suffix âself/âselves to the object forms of he and they rather than their possessive forms. Speakers who use hisself and theirselves are smoothing out the pattern's inconsistencies by applying the same rule to all forms in the set. â¢ A further regularization is the use of âself regardless of number, yielding the forms ourself and theirself. Using a singular form in a plural context may seem imprecise, but the plural meaning of ourself and theirself is made clear by the presence of the plural forms ourâ and theirâ. Hisself and theirselves have origins in British English and are still prevalent today in vernacular speech in England.

I'm for the Standard English.

Re: 'I'm one of those kids who think/thinks?

Kooyeen — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:47:22 GMT

Ok Tanit, so it's not just me! You know, what remains of my poor Italian is strongly influenced by my dialect...

And you know what I just found out? That this fact (the problem of choosing a plural or singular verb) occours when the subject is different:

I'm one of those people who know/knows...
You are one of those who know/knows...

Amazing! I think the pattern is very similar to "It's me who is to blame...", "It's you who is to blame..."
Cool!

Re: Who are that bunch of rednecks?

Kooyeen — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:14:35 GMT

I just did a little search on the net and found out that people really don't use those kinds of expressions. So it must be that, as you all say, collective nouns are not good in the structures I wanted to use. I thought they were possible, that's why I asked. Oddly enough, I often use those structures in my dialect, but I wouldn't know whether to choose a singular or plural verb in correct Italian...

Anyway, thank you very much for your replies, guys