Re: I thought this was rather cute

Hi Martin,

Martin Hildebrandt wrote:
> okay, i understand. sorry for my harsh reaction but thats exactly the
> point: asp is read by loads of people who are not native speakers

And here's a reaction from one.

> (like me, as you probably noticed).

your name and the .de extention in your email are a give-away ;-)

> people all over the world try to use english as an international code to
> communicate across language borders. some do better than others. but most
> of them try and do their best. many americans don't recognize how
> difficult it is to communicate in an unfamiliar tongue.

Indeed. English by far the lingua franca all over the world. Heck, I talk
English with Germans whenever I'm there. Usually the efforts put into
learning the language in order to be able to communicate are much
appreciated by many, but taken for granted by native speakers.

There have been threads before on ASP where people have been flamed for
pointing out towards a lousy speller. The general idea was that spelling was
less important as communication. I find it sad though to see this only
applies to a certain extent. Should I now start pointing out spelling errors
with native speakers? "You should have written 'off', not 'of'" or "it's
'too', not 'to'". Or the worst: "you should have written 'should have', not
'should of'". *I* and I'm sure you too, Martin, put in a lot of effort to
master the language. I, as well as you, can very well imagine how hard it is
for others to get a grasp on the language that is not their own.

I applaud every effort of them to go on and try.

> they always expect foreigners to use their (the english) language. back in
> school we read an artical called "why the english (speaking people) are
> lousy languists".

Until they're in France and notice the French have a similar attitude.

> considering this, one should admire the attemps of this website to be
> international without calling it cute or funny or hilarious. its like
> seeing a handicapped guy trying to walk and calling it cute. its not.

I couldn't agree with you more. The guy who set up that website might have
lurked here, and most likely would decide never to post here now. I wouldn't
blame him one bit.

> greetings from germany

Yours truly from belgium,


Corneel.
.

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