Re: to show/see sb. to the door? [AmE]

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008, CyberCypher wrote:
Matthew Huntbach wrote:

I would imagine most non-native speakers aim to make their English
more like native English, so if there is some way they are pronouncing
a word which could easily be corrected just by saying "don't hold your
mouth like that when you say this", they'd welcome it.

I don't think you know enough students of X as a foreign language. Some
of them are so damned cock-sure of how good their foreign language
skills are that when native speakers correct them, they are insulted.
And some students just get pissed off when they are corrected outside
their English classroom, because they don't want to always be having
lessons. The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions, innit?

Your previous suggestion was that the student supposed this WAS a classroom situation, hence the use of classroom abbreviations.
Had I meant just to be sarky, I would have left my reply as just my
first line. But I appreciated this would be cruel and upsetting to
the student who asked a genuine question, so I followed up with an
suggestion as to why he might have used "sb" and why that usage was best avoided when posting to this newgroup.

It is part of the nature of this group that since posters to it are
interested in language, we quite like the game of picking up on an
incidental part of a question someone has posed and talking about that
rather than the question. That is why threads so often entertainingly
switch what they are actually talking about. It is a mark of welcome
to newcomers to this group that they are included in this game, so if
the OP did feel insulted, I hope he can now see it in this way.

Matthew Huntbach
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Kerry Screws the Dems
    ... I have spent 12 years defending William Clark's rights to his views. ... he has the right to do this in his classroom; but he has not indicated to ... Outside the classroom, if a student ... own minds, and there is no place for trying to brainwash them. ...
    (rec.sport.golf)
  • Re: OT Virginia Tech terrorist chinese national
    ... Will terrorists use gun control to leave us defenseless? ... Remember the 911 terrorists were here on student visas! ... He could not have aquired his firearms legaly, federal gun control ... was a young men with a gun exiting a classroom. ...
    (rec.crafts.metalworking)
  • Re: Classroom Default Domain/Local Policy issue
    ... classroom DNS to interfere with the campus DNS I had them ... >> Apply a Local Policy everything works as applied. ... >> Same scenario for student machines. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.group_policy)
  • Re: NBC: Immigration Rallies Draw Thousands Nationwide
    ... a teacher from a kid with a temper tantrum (flinging the contents of his ... going on in another teacher's classroom, kept a constant & vigilant eye out ... fielded questions from my colleagues about an unsound ... hunted down a relative to pick up a 5 year old student left stranded for two ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)