Question Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks in Questions about SAP Websites

Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

jurjen_heeck — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:25:04 GMT

Since a lot of us, including me, are non-native English speakers we do make mistakes. Sometimes they lead to funny threads and/or amusing discussions like this one:

In this particular one I linked to the site:

[DailyWritingTips|http://www.dailywritingtips.com/category/misused-words/]

Another of my 'favorite' typo's has to do with the word definitely. To get that right surf to:

[d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y|http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/]

Here's my question to you all:

Please contribute by adding sites to this thread so we all learn if we should use [Then or Than?|http://www.dailywritingtips.com/then-or-than/] and understand more about common mistakes made here on the forums and in our other (business) communications. Of course you may accompany them by examples of texts horribly gone wrong by simple typo's but let's not compete with the funny threads thread.

Thanks in advance!

Jurjen

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

Former Member — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:36:10 GMT

a lot / alot / allot

A lot, meaning a large amount or number of people or things, can be used to modify a noun.

For example:-

"I need a lot of time to develop this web site."

It can also be used as an adverb, meaning very much or very often.

For example:-

"I look a lot like my sister."

It has become a common term in speech; and is increasingly used in writing.

Allot is a verb, which means to give (especially a share of something) for a particular purpose:-

For example: "We were allotted a desk each."

There is no such word in the English language. If you write it this way - imagine me shouting at you - "No Such Word!"

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

jurjen_heeck — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:43:13 GMT

Thats what you think http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

Former Member — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:55:16 GMT

Couple of things that really get my goat

People writing "your", when they mean "you are".

Also using "could of" as in "You could of done this some other way." It probably means "You could have done it some other way.

This is not necessarily always by non-native speakers.

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

OttoGold — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:32:28 GMT

Hello,

first: I like this initiative, I am not a native speaker and am sure I will be ble to learn something from here.

But to our defense: Many of my typos (especially in blogs or emails) are because of the MS Word (where auto-correction done something wrong or I didn´t switch the laguage to English and the typos are corrections of the English text using my native language Vocabulary).

Sometimes these mistakes look very funny and I feel ashamed I publish something with this kind of error.

But again, keep this going, maybe even make this thread a sticky...?!

Regards Otto

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

matt — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:06:13 GMT

That's "Tricks" not "Trics"...

I hate with a deep and abiding hatred the use of "could of". It isn't a typing error - it's just WRONG. "Could have" is correct.. But "you're your, their, there, they're" are common typos. I make them all the time.

Never say "a lot", say "a great deal". Or "quite a few".

If a group or collection is countable then use "fewer" rather than "less". E.g. There are fewer point hunters on SCN since strict moderation came in. Use "fewer" when you could replace it with a number and the sentence would still make sense.

If the collection isn't countable, then you use "less". E.g. there is less beer in my glass than there was five minutes ago.

More is the antonym of both fewer and less, so the problem doesn't arise when the quantity has increased.

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

ThomasZloch — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:43:09 GMT

So if it's neither more nor less, it's more or less the same, right?

Thomas

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

matt — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:33:48 GMT

That would seem equitable. Yes.

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

MaheshChandra — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:38:39 GMT

in present days English Language is growing rapidly with the usage of words, if more people using the Wrong word and felling it as right, then its added to E language (based on Oxford dictionary edition list).

some of the words added to English (Indian) in 2010 are

Overthink: think about (something) too much or for too long.

some more prejudjement, social Networking, soft skills

Cool hunter: a person whose job it is to make observations or predictions about new styles and trends.

Bromance: a close but nonsexual relationship between two men.

Exit strategy a preplanned means of extricating oneself from a situation.

Defriend another term for unfriend (remove someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site). some more in the list. and unfriend is the new word of year 2009.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary

http://oed.com/help/updates/latest-additions.html#oos

regards

Mahesh

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

jurjen_heeck — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:39:56 GMT

> That's "Tricks" not "Trics"...

Nooooo!

Isn't that the worst location for a mistake? Since you're a moderator, can you please fix the thread title for me?

Thanks in advance!

Jurjen

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

jurjen_heeck — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 09:44:03 GMT

> But to our defense:

That immediately reminds me of this little gem:

http://www.cleanjokeoftheday.com/jokes-spellingchequer.html

I already thought of it in the "weather wether whether" thread: which lead to this one.

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

ThomasZloch — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:30:52 GMT

> can you please fix the thread title for me?

done.

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

monika_eggers — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:07:09 GMT


> Since a lot of us, including me, are non-native English speakers we do make mistakes. 
> Another of my 'favorite' typo's has to do with the word definitely. To get that right surf to: 
> [d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y|http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/] 
>

I think native speakers get that one wrong just as frequently as non-native speakers, if not more often. I hate seeing "definately".

But it's funny when people type "definatly" and MS Office automatically replaces this with "defiantly" ^^. I often get e-mails from colleagues saying things like "We should defiantly do this" ... yes, we should definitely put all our defiance into this .


> Also using "could of" as in "You could of done this some other way." It probably means "You could have done it some other way.
> 
> This is not necessarily always by non-native speakers.

Actually this particular mistake is made almost exclusively by native speakers (or quasi-native speakers, like people from Hong Kong or India who start learning English at 3 or so). I wondered for a long time how they could possibly confuse "have" and "of", until someone explained that they are not replacing "would have", "could have" etc. with "would of", "could of", but "would've", "could've". Additionally native speakers pronounce "of" approximately as "ev" (the o in "of" is reduced to a schwa if the "of" is not in a position where it is emphasized) ... which is exactly the same or very similar to the way the 've part of "would've", "could've" is pronounced. So for a native speaker this is almost as innocent a mistake as writing "you're" for "your" or "there" for "their".

I hate this error very much. For non-native speakers something like "would of" is extremely hard to parse, because when reading this and pronouncing the words in our heads we do not reduce the "of" to "ev", we read it kind of like "off", and cannot associate this with 've or have.


> Never say "a lot", say "a great deal". Or "quite a few".

There is nothing wrong with "a lot" (when properly separated by a space). This is perfectly correct English.


> If a group or collection is countable then use "fewer" rather than "less".

This statement is not correct. One can use "less" for both countable and uncountable nouns. The usage with uncountable nouns even predates the one with countable nouns (9th vs. 14th century). But there are guides that recommend against using "less" with countable nouns and some even claim this to be incorrect.

What I hate very much is when people use "less" when they should use "little". Only non-native speakers do this, of course. But quite often and even in official documents . I find this really cringeworthy. "There is too less time to do this or that" for example. The opposite of much is little, not less! Little cannot only mean small.

A funny mistake, also in an official document: "The information in this document is objective to change." instead of "... subject to change". I think the author must be too object-oriented .

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

Former Member — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:08:18 GMT

The other day I was pulled up by one of my audience, during my presentation on a proposed design for a bespoke development - I had a slide titled "Authorizations". The person got really upset about this and begged me with tears in his eyes to correct it - apparently the correct way is to say "Authorisations", and to see it spelt the other way, really rubs him the wrong way.

The funny thing is I always try to use the UK spelling myself, and I honestly always thought spelling it with a "z" was the UK way. Anyway, this may be something which some of us can learn.

Thanks and Regards

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

monika_eggers — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:12:45 GMT

According to this list http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm in British English both spellings are permitted, but the one with s is preferred (and the US and Canadian spelling only allow for the z).

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

Former Member — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:58:45 GMT

If something is already described as "a preference" in British English, then it is actually leaning quite far out the window.

As a benchmark, it is certainly much stricter than the use of "you have to" in US commercial adverts.

Cheers,

Julius

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

matt — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:27:37 GMT

> >


> > Never say "a lot", say "a great deal". Or "quite a few".

> There is nothing wrong with "a lot" (when properly separated by a space). This is perfectly correct English.

> >


> > If a group or collection is countable then use "fewer" rather than "less".

> This statement is not correct. One can use "less" for both countable and uncountable nouns. The usage with uncountable nouns even predates the one with countable nouns (9th vs. 14th century). But there are guides that recommend against using "less" with countable nouns and some even claim this to be incorrect.

You've lost me. You're saying my statement is incorrect, you say that you can use both, and that the "less" usage predates the "fewer", then you back me up. In any case, the fact that in 1600 "less" was used with countable objects is irrelevant. It's what the correct usage is now that matters.

The funny thing is, in my "speaking English to foreigners" accent, "fewer" with countable and "less" with countable sounds correct. "Less" with countable really grates. BUT. If I'm speaking in my Yorkshire accent, then "fewer" just sounds posh. "Less" sounds better in all contexts.

Same applies to "a lot of" or "lots of".

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

matt — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:30:20 GMT


> According to this list http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm in British English both spellings are permitted, but the one with s is preferred (and the US and Canadian spelling only allow for the z).

According to my OED, the z spelling predates the s spelling.

In one company I worked in, my (Swiss) boss insisted on the American spelling as it was company policy. He ordered his business cards via the secretary. "Enterprize Resource Planning". It wasn't until she photocopied a page from Websters, that he accepted that sometimes 's' is correct, even in the US.

She really capsised his rule...

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

Former Member — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:42:09 GMT

Wonderful English from around the world :[http://poorbuthappy.com/yourthing/post/wonderful-english-from-around-the-world/]

I will later post a few updates of the tehcnical change requests my dear fellow country-men pen, i am sure you would love the puzzles and brainteasers

Here is one for a start:

If delivery date in STR is todayu2019s date then material availability date will be in past where we can not check availability hence starting today availability will be checked and if stock is available today then delivery date in STO will be todayu2019s date plus 3 days

Re: Bettering your English, useful sites with tips and tricks

matt — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:54:36 GMT

If delivery date in STR is todayu2019s date, then material availability date will be in past, where we can not check availability. Hence, starting today, availability will be checked, and if stock is available today, then delivery date in STO will be todayu2019s date, plus 3 days.

Now give us a difficult one.