Re: Goodbye, hopefully for the last time

Tom wrote:

Charles, I am new to this group. I am studying Spanish and those of us
learning the language often ask native speakers on alt.usage.spanish
for help in understanding certain words or phrases. I came to this
group because I thought I could be helpful to others learning
English. But, I received the disrespectful, vulgar, and hateful
responses that you are talking about and it was not from foreigners
but from English speaking people who ridicule everything I posted. I
am not stupid. I am 65 years of age, live in the USA, and have an
education. However, when someone asks a simple question concerning
English, the disrupters do not try to answer the question but nitpick
it to death. I don't blame you for leaving. I do not intend to do
much posting under these circumstances. I will just lurk and watch
them make a fool out of themselves. I am sorry I didn't get to know
you better.

Ah, yes. That reminds me of my first few months in the group. I left. Twice, I think. Then I got used to things. They are not all bad, you know, and there sure are some pretty bright people who share their wisdom here now and then. One just has to learn which ones are the more competent contributors in language matters.

It also helps when one conforms to the regular posting style of the group, like giving attributions to the quoted stuff (yes, quoting what is responded to is a great help), and such. I haven't paid attention to what was said to you in particular, but following the advice at http://www.alt-usage-english.org/ in Intro Document A is bound to make some of the future responses to you a lot kinder.

I don't know what in your contrributions was ridiculed, and I'm not going to go back and look, but one thing you can be sure of -- when someone strongly proclaims something that does not hold water, there is often hell to pay. Taking great care in advisory statements is a virtue.

The people here are not all bad -- some might be just a bit peculiar, like me. Don't go away mad. In fact, don't go away.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
http://www.geocities.com/opus731/ 

.

Relevant Pages

  • Learning a language
    ... I am having the pleasure of learning a third language, ... English, Pidgin, Latin, and who knows what else. ... noun, verb, adjective, etc. so the complex grammar of English is ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: History of French
    ... >Does learning English properly mean that one should be ... >child spends far more time learning the language than ... >mathematical Russian. ... news item about Iraq in Dutch of English first, ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: EDITORIAL: A claim to English
    ... the part about " ..it is high time we took ownership ... A lot of Malaysians think they know English but instead, ... > line in support of the importance of learning English. ... > colonial language, no longer a 'foreign' one, because we have made it ...
    (soc.culture.malaysia)
  • Re: universal concept list
    ... >> elements whenever you forget a word shape or word meaning. ... the process of learning the word. ... > learning a new word in a foreign language. ... learn 100 Finnish words that had similar English shapes. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: billiards bibliography
    ... I am in the process of developing a billiards bibliography of English ... language works through the 20th century. ... I believe you will get better responses by posting on other forums ...
    (rec.sport.billiard)
Loading