ESL: answers

Ever hear the story of the three wells? Well, well, well...

Diana wisely decided to take on the ESL challenge. Let's see how she did.

My original piece follows. Red numbers denote errors; blue letters denote non-errors I thought might fool her.

Since Diana (my eldest sister) loves inspecting my published works, it's a good idea to give her something to inspect (and I better not mess up this one.) (1) There's precious little chance that I'll get a mistake by her (misplaced punctuation, mispelled (2) words, etc.), although if I try hard enough I might succeed. Let's reserve judgement (a) for now.

Diana is a farmer's wife, though I can't affirm that she knows much about husbandry. I don't really need to discuss whence (b) she hailed prior to living in Ontario. Suffice it to say, whether she is from Smithers, Houston, or even from (3) the Netherlands, she hasn't always been completely aware of the geography around her. Rumour has it she once identified the Skeena River (the third (4) longest river in B.C.) as being in Florida. If such a gross error was (5) commited (6) by you or me, we would never forgive ourselves. Does she think that the Northwest Territory (c) is an American state? I wonder where she thinks Saint John, Newfoundland (7) is?

What effected (d) this interesting ineptitude in geographical detail? At the center (e) of this phenomenon might be the fact that she had less (8) years in our alma mater, Ebenezer. I went there 12 years; I think she went maybe 8 (9).

Maybe I'm not being fair. Maybe I should put up with the big sister trying to be a big sister. She only (10) corrects me to (11) able to have one up on me. But that's alright; it's an almost imperceptable (12) flaw in her otherwise perfect (13), albeit idiosyncratic, character.

Right now we're staying at my parents' (f) place (neighbouring Diana), but after she's finished tearing this post to shreds I may wish to slink away to some other people's (g) house in shame, if only to put some physical distance between me (14) and my sister the ELP (English Language Policewoman)!

So, Diana, can you find more than a dozen errors in this post? I don't doubt you'll get plenty of help.

Her results (renumbered to minimize confusion):

i. that would be FEWER years, not less years.
ii. I don't correct to have one up on you, it's for your well being, so you'll learn to write properly.
iii. your second last paragraph comes close to being a run-on sentence.
iv. Entirely too many parentheses!
v. Paragraph 2-the first two sentences have no relation to each other. your second one should be backing up your first.
vi. second last paragraph-that would be my sister and me-if you'd quit putting yourself first...
vii. I attended Ebby for 10 years, not 8. get your facts straight!
viii. first paragraph-"good idea" being a matter of opinion. get your facts straight, boy!
ix. last sentence of first paragraph-wasted words. should be more relevant to topic.
x. "committed" generally has two "t's"
xi. paragraph 2- WERE committed would actually be better than WAS committed-you're talking about more than one, no?
AND # xii... MISPELLED is spelled incorrectly; it needs another 's'.

My response to her results:

i. Correct.
ii. Although I did state this as fact, the error is the position of the word 'only'.
iii. It's either run-on or it's not, and this one is not.
iv. Nonsense.
v. Touché. This is why I have zero Pulitzers to my name.
vi. Almost correct.
vii. I was not stating a fact, so I was not in error.
viii. I stand by my opinion.
ix. Nonsense.
x. Correct.
xi. It was an error, but nothing to do with "more than one".
xii. Correct.

Not bad for an ESL immigrant! She caught four of my errors and came up with one more.

Here's the official list, excluding what she caught correctly.

1. The first period should be after, not before, the closing parenthesis.
3. 'from' should be omitted.
4. The Skeena River is the second, not third, longest river in BC.
5. 'was' should be 'were' due to the use of past subjunctive mood.
7. Saint John is in New Brunswick, not Newfoundland.
9. '8' should be written out as 'eight'. (Opinions vary for the '12').
10. The oft-misplaced word 'only' should immediately precede the word(s) on which it is applying a restriction. Hence 'only corrects me to' should be 'corrects me only to'; here it rashly implied that she does nothing, other than to correct me, in order to be able to have one up on me.
11. The word 'be' is missing here. This was actually an oversight on my part.
12. 'imperceptable' is misspelled.
13. Otherwise perfect?! I can't believe your oversight of that one.
14. 'between me and my sister ...' should be 'between my sister ... and myself'

Diana didn't bite on any of these:

a. 'judgement' is not misspelled, contrary to popular belief.
b. 'whence' is often preceded by 'from', although 'whence' itself means 'from where'.
c. Our NWT is actually pluralized, but a reference to Northwest Territory is not wrong - it was an American governmental region from 1789 to 1803.
d. 'effected' is correct usage, whereas this word is commonly mistakenly used in place of 'affected'
e. 'center' is American spelling (vs. 'centre'), but I for one will allow it.
f. "parents'" is correct apostrophic usage.
g. "people's" is correct apostrophic usage.

ESL: English as a simple language

Since Diana (my eldest sister) loves inspecting my published works, it's a good idea to give her something to inspect (and I better not mess up this one.) There's precious little chance that I'll get a mistake by her (misplaced punctuation, mispelled words, etc.), although if I try hard enough I might succeed. Let's reserve judgement for now.

Diana is a farmer's wife, though I can't affirm that she knows much about husbandry. I don't really need to discuss whence she hailed prior to living in Ontario. Suffice it to say, whether she is from Smithers, Houston, or even from the Netherlands, she hasn't always been completely aware of the geography around her. Rumour has it she once identified the Skeena River (the third longest river in B.C.) as being in Florida. If such a gross error was commited by you or me, we would never forgive ourselves. Does she think that the Northwest Territory is an American state? I wonder where she thinks Saint John, Newfoundland is?

What effected this interesting ineptitude in geographical detail? At the center of this phenomenon might be the fact that she had less years in our alma mater, Ebenezer. I went there 12 years; I think she went maybe 8.

Maybe I'm not being fair. Maybe I should put up with the big sister trying to be a big sister. She only corrects me to able to have one up on me. But that's alright; it's an almost imperceptable flaw in her otherwise perfect, albeit idiosyncratic, character.

Right now we're staying at my parents' place (neighbouring Diana), but after she's finished tearing this post to shreds I may wish to slink away to some other people's house in shame, if only to put some physical distance between me and my sister the ELP (English Language Policewoman)!

So, Diana, can you find more than a dozen errors in this post? I don't doubt you'll get plenty of help.

Movie gripes

I feel like I should write more, so here's another post. My guilt subsides nicely if I post thrice in a day and then don't for weeks on end. Like I said, it's quantity I'm going for.

So some gripes about effects in movies/shows (or I'm still living in the nineties):

1. When people drive they still move the steering wheel an awful lot.
2. Tires squeal a lot less nowadays on dirt/snow/grass, but I still notice it sometimes.
3. When it's supposedly snowing, snow doesn't melt when it lands on surfaces on which it should melt; it just keeps looking like the lint the guy on the set is actually throwing around.
4. People know exactly when or when not to hang up the phone, without the use of goodbyes.
5. Air bags don't go off when vehicles are rear-ended during high-speed car chases.

There must be many more. Anyone?

...

For the record (before any of my nit-picky family members comment), I won't fix my typos and all that after I publish a post. My old(est) sister loves to read blogs and comment on spelling and grammar errors, and my dear father likes to join in. He, however, has earned the right to criticize, since he at least has a blog. I'm convinced the sister doesn't pick up on any of the content of what I write; I guess that means I can write whatever I want about her and she won't really notice. Kind of like right now. Better post this quick... before they can comment.

Rejoice, faithful readers

Well, it's been over five weeks since my last post. If that doesn't eliminate impatient would-be readers, I don't know what will. Can't think of any better repellent.

Speaking of repellents, I found a great way to eliminate bugs. House flies, that is. At my parents' place on the quail farm there reside many creatures. Flies love farms of course, since many farms produce manure and, well, who isn't attracted to manure? So there are flies galore, and they usually wait just outside the house waiting for someone to let them in. Anyone who comes over knows that the first thing one hears when walking into the house is a frantic "CLOSE THE DOOR!!" (or "DEUR DICHT!!" if one happens to be from across the pond), followed soon after by a "Hi" or "Welcome" or some other such nicety.

Anyway, back to the flies. Last night I felt like being productive so I went outside onto the porch and started swatting flies. You might want to liken such an activity to heading to the beach with a sponge to soak up whichever body of water adjoins said beach. But you'd be wrong. After a superfluity of swatting, the only flies left were largely two-dimensional and resting on the ground. And maybe no one has noticed, but now when I step in the door I'm not accompanied by a large outline of insects in the shape of me. Fly problem solved. Until tomorrow at least, I hope.

We're at the farm these days. Last week my old(est) sister and her family went camping at Rock Point Provincial Park so we had much of the place to ourselves. I helped out by driving her and the kids to the campground on Monday... but since my navigational/directional skills (or instincts) are just as good as hers, an intended 40-minute drive took 90 minutes; on the upside we got a good tour of Dunnville and the Haldimand area. Oops. On the way back from the campground that evening, I had the trip down to 70 minutes... accidentally visiting Port Colborne in the process. Apart from my obvious directional ineptitude, the lack of signs is mostly the problem, since in the normal parts of Canada one can get by without a map, relying solely on signs along the road. Not so everywhere, apparently. And who on earth decided that perhaps Highway 3 should intersect Regional Road 3 and just for fun let's make the signs for these look the same? Someone not looking to amuse me, that's who! Grumble, grumble.

I'd write more in this post, but I'm going for quantity over quality.