I wish the authors would proofread

And I thought what she meant was that she had to perform oral sex on him or he would sentence her to death. Then I realized that "honor" was spelled "honour" which means that the judge is English and the English don't do such things, do they?

Because here we write for an internationally based audience we also have to be careful about regional slang. Ie: chips vs crisps.

Seegee

Oh please keep using the your regional slang. We learn so much by asking questions when we find things we don't understand. I have learned about sponges, and jumpers and plimsols and gym kits from reading here. Our language experiences are much more enriched from your writings.

Thanks catmama. I do try to keep my settings generic, but a bit of strine can't help but slipping in there here and now.

Exactly! And in return, the Brits, Aussies, and Kiwis can all learn to talk "right," just like Americans (well, not like the Texans, or New Yorkers, or Bostonians...)

That's so true. Just the other night, while reading challenge story, I came across 'jus primae noctis'. I had to look it up. It was an interesting history lesson. A lesson that makes me happy to live in modern times.
I've learned all kinds of things here. LSF makes learning fun!!

I always thought Jersey accents were very similar to New Yorkers.

The most careful proof-reading in the world won't help if the writer simply doesn't know that the word s/he has used is incorrect. The English language is full of homophones: there/their; two/too/to; here/hear; air/heir etc. Spell checkers will not pick these up as errors because they are valid words, even though they may be used in the wrong context.

So, if I read: "She was going to peddle her bicycle up the hill," I might assume she was going to sell her bicycle to someone who lived up the hill. However, it is much more likely that the author meant 'pedal', and was unaware of the two meanings.

When I validated here at the library, one of the commonest errors I noticed was the confusion between 'discreet' and 'discrete'. In almost all cases, the word should have been 'discreet' - in fact, I can't recall a single instance where 'discrete' was the required word.

Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on authors who make these errors, but I would hope that if they see the validator has changed something, they might look up the word and learn the correct usage.

One amusing example from my teaching days was the following gem: "I don't like the school playground because it's full of sweaty rapers." I was shocked until I realised that the girl was complaining about the littler problem, and meant "sweety wrappers"! (candy wrappers - for our American friends.)

I'm sure glad to know that the use of antiperspirant wouldn't have resolved her complaint.


Perhaps you're right. Good thing I speak with the complete absence of any accent whatsoever that can be expected of my Buckeye roots.

I always thought Jersey accents were very similar to Guernsey ones!!

No, I think their "moos" are quite distinctive. (we ARE talking cows, aren't we?)