this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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English changes very quickly. New words come out every year. Some programming languages takes years for updates.
Also that person may have known what you meant, but another might not and may have any number of reasons for not asking.
Better communication skills are a worthwhile goal and there's no good reason to not learn and grow.
I mean, there's a difference between something being phrased in an odd or confusing way, and a pedantic comment about whether you should use a Latin plural. 90% of the time you get the latter.
90+% of the time you get common mistakes. Should ofs, they're - there - their confusions, apostrophes for plurals.
The kind of thing that confuses ESL speakers. The decent thing would seem to be to try and stick to the way it's taught rather than go with the "it doesn't matter" route when it absolutely matters to some.
If you're speaking to someone ESL, ~~don't~~ do not even use contractions. They are perfectly valid but they are confusing to those new to the language. I also like to put all idioms in quotes when writing, as those are confusing in any new language. Misspellings are less of an issue than you might think because English spellings are dumb and arbitrary already.
When someone tells me "um, it is cacti, AKCTUALLY" I do not think concern for an ESL person listening in is the main motivation, though.
Cactopodes
I think you and I have very different experiences. I rarely see that kind of correction if ever.
When you're in a public space you never know when your words are being consumed by an ESL speaker. I think the best approach is natural yet accurate. They're going to encounter contractions when dealing with native speakers, but the difference between it's and its, for example, can be tricky so try to use them as taught.
Spelling mistakes can absolutely be an issue. It's already hard enough to figure out English spelling without native speakers making it worse. Add on to that the difficulty in any added language of working out near homophones, let alone actual homophones.
I knew someone who was pretty decent with English as their third language but had trouble keeping Texas and taxes straight. I know another guy who is American and uses no in place of know. That one threw me for a while before I figured out what he was trying to say.
I will admit, I do like that "technically" the plural for octopus is "supposed to be" octopods (pronounced like oc-tip-o-dees) but that's a fun "fact", not a correction I've ever tried to make.
I really do run into issues talking aloud about plants of the family Cactaceae fairly often. It might be a hyper-local thing I guess.
I don't remember where exactly I got the spelling thing from, so I could just be wrong about that.
I didn't want to come off dismissive asking how often you're talking about those specific kinds of plants but maybe it's a relevant question after all lol
Except for front-end technologies like JavaScript where there's a new framework every week lol
Yeah, but what percentage of normal speech is made up by words under 20 years old?
Depends on how you talk and what you define as normal. How much C++ is still using C++98 and how much uses C++20? It's pretty silly of a comparison. As someone else put it, corrections are also there for a third party.
But let's get down to the issue. You are right, correction of English is used as an insult a lot of the time. Sometimes correction of code is also used as an insult. When correcting someone is used out of line and abused, it's always a bad thing. Correcting someone should never be used to insult.
If you don't mind, let's go down a rabbit hole, if you don't care to join feel free to stop reading here. The upshot is that you are correct because the intent behind correcting English is usually abusive.
So, I corrected you earlier but this is to create a conversation. This is something I've been noticing a lot in social media overall: corrections seem to create conversation where if you agree with someone it's not typically a conversation. "Yeah, you are right..." isn't a path to an interesting exchange of ideas. There is another way that I'd also love to encourage people to try. Asking questions and digging into why. I've seen this happen a few times and it feels like it's taken more as an insult. A lot of people get defensive if you ask "Why is this something you think." We've created an internet culture of correction, where correction makes conversation. I wonder if this stems from people on the internet correcting people as an insult. Anyways, thank you for reading this random tangent :D
I like this. I don't think that's the intention for a lot of pedants, but rather they hold a belief in prescripitivism, and have taken it upon themselves to enforce the rules as they imagine them, for one reason or another. That being said, it's still telling someone they're wrong without any possibility of improving present or future discussions, and that's why it's annoying.
It's true, and I think there's some people that like that approach more than others. I wonder if that contributes to the high number of lurkers on every platform. The main other kind of space centers around venting about a common complaint as the main form of discourse, and those always end up being a little unhinged after a while.
You know, I've never thought about it that way, but you're right. Every once an a while I see someone take a truly odd position on something, and I end up just asking questions because it's new and interesting and I don't really have a bottled comeback. It seems like that actually makes them more defensive than if I had just called them an asshole.
You're welcome, it was a good one!
Edit: Oh yeah, and on C, I was expecting someone to mention it. It's an outlier in being way more static than pretty much every other programming language, but it's still faster changing than the average natural language. Maybe casual Hebrew has changed more since the 60's, I guess.
Which is easier - read a 50-year-old letter, or run a 50-year-old program?