Asklemmy

43757 readers

2026 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

135

Speakers of non-English languages, what common mistakes do native speakers make that drive you crazy? (infosec.pub)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

126 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For example, English speakers commonly mix up your/you're or there/their/they're. I'm curious about similar mistakes in other languages.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Thank you! I often feel the urge to use "less" before a countable noun despite knowing that I'm supposed to use "fewer." Good to know that it isn't just me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I see your point, but my personal view is that I like order. I don't even care too much about specific kind of order. Chaotic-looking things can also be in-order (my favourite example is Vietnamese traffic).

I would argue at least is not equal to the least. It's a different word, despite being spelt the same. There are a few examples like that which, unfortunately, escape me at the moment.

Also, don't mean any offence, but text is difficult to relay that - I've literally loled at you mispelling grammar in the sentence talking about grammar and spelling :D

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm actually with you - building out our plural system would be a satisfying direction for English to go. Unfortunately, I don't see "at fewest" catching on. Maybe I'll try it out a few.

If you look at non-standard dialects of English, it seems like the most natural thing is for the aspect system to grow out as the language evolves further (and unfortunately lose some of it's symmetries).