Re: Foreigner(s)

"Lew" <noone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> skrev i meddelelsen
news:gnoc8d$i6h$3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Arne H. Wilstrup" <ahw> writes:
And I often have pupils who are more than willing to show me a
dictionary that shows otherwise than I have taught them at the very
moment. So I have to admit that the "computer mouses" is correct as
well, even if is painful to my ears.

I work with computers and have done so for over thirty years. In all
that time, I have never heard anyone refer to "computer mouses". It
is not correct.

Well, let's agree to disagree. I have already showed this group several
English-English dictionaries - well-known to you I think, and all of
them confirm my suggestion.

You might be a native speaker, but even a native speaker doesn't know
all, and native speakers are not the only authorities of the matter, at
least not all in this group. Being a native speaker give you some
advantages of course to what I - a non-native speaker - say, but even I
don't know all about my language, and I think it is the same in yours.

When I have proved that the word is correct in this context by the
dictionaries, written by native American and English speakers, I have
two choices : either to say: All the dictionaries are wrong and you are
right or vice versa. I prefer the latter.

I have a certain respect for native speakers and their notions, of
course, but it is not the same as to say that they are oracles and
"know-it-all".

I am not in a position to say that you are wrong, as I am not a native
speaker, but I am in a position to say that you are not always right -
and this is one of the issues I think that the dictionaries are right.
Why? Because all the dictionaries I have referred to say the same thing.

I don't care whether you have worked with computers for more than 30
years - so have I, but it doesn't give my the authority to claim that I
know everything about computers. I don't and you don't. Computers and
the technology behind it including how programs work in details, are
impossibly to know for a single person. If you accept this, then you
must accept that no one can know everything about one's language.

I am afraid that you are wrong here, unless you can substantiate your
notion better than just "I have worked with computers for so many
years". Working with computers may make you and expert on computers, but
not on words.


.

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