Re: Foreigner(s)
- From: jens@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 01:57:03 -0800 (PST)
On 7 Mar., 01:31, "Arne H. Wilstrup" <ahw> wrote:
You can be an *** yourself
The English idiom would be "it takes one to know one". You seem to
have translated the Danish idiom "du kan selv være et røvhul"
literally. The Danish expression is common among children but unusual
among adults. The English expression is also quite childish.
because you have
interestings point of views
interesting points of view
disagree in the most issues,
You must lose the "the" here. Also, I would prefer "on" to "in" here,
but that is more a personal preference, as we have seen recently.
In Danish, of course, you would need "de fleste", cognate to "the
most". Your error may simply be an unwitting Danishism.
you really contribute to the fact that I shall not think I am
perfect in English at all,
You probably meant "should" or "must". I suspect that your choice
of"shall" is another Danishism; the same notion in Danish would be
expressed with "skal". Normally "shall" would imply the future tense
here, and it is just possible to parse your sentence meaningfully.
I wouldn't miss you for the money in the world:
The idiom requires "for all the money".
"I wouldn't miss you" is probably not what you wanted to say. "Miss"
parses as "long for you when you are gone" (Danish: "savne") or "not
hit you" (Danish "ramme ved siden af"). It does not really parse as
"want to do without" (Danish "undvære"), which it looks as if you
intended, judging by the use of "all the money in the world".
I can only be better
Better: "get better" or "improve".
even
if I don't like to be corrected, I'd rather want you to correct me than
a Dane or a Swede.
This time, unfortunately, you have to make do with second-best.
You obviously don't like me, so if the happy day really occurs that you
This is complicated. Days can definitely occur, but "occur" is not
normally used with "one happy day". It would be better to write "...
if one happy day you really ...".
will have to say, "Arne, your mistakes in English is not so bad as
before",
Chuck would probably get the number of the verb right. I am aware that
you have requested that an error where you confuse "is" and "are" not
be pointed out to you; I respect that request in general, but I am
making an exception here because of the context.
Incidentally, your general attitude seems to as follows: "I know that
I make errors such as confusing 'is' and 'are'. I also know all the
rules. I just can't be bothered to apply these rules and write
carefully enough to assure that mistakes like these only rarely slip
through to my readers -- at least not here in alt.usage.english." You
probably don't realize that this arrogant attitude is perceived as
much stronger that you intend.
A praise from you is better than a praise from a person
"Praise" does not take an indefinite article. It is an uncountable
noun.
not worth licking your
shoes,
not worthy of licking
not entitled to bind your shoe laces,
Shoelaces are tied, not bound.
.
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