English As She Is Spoke

What do you get if you try to write a phrasebook for a language you don't understand?

An incomparable work of comic genius as it turns out, which has been reprinted many times and still has a cult following today. It has inspired many other spoof manuscripts, not to mention Monty Python's famous Hungarian Phrasebook sketch, and its unique beauty is summed up thus by none other than Mark Twain: "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect." Read on to find out why I love this brilliantly bizarre book so much...

Your abusing are language

Today I want to vent my frustration at some of the careless grammatical mistakes that seem to be becoming increasingly prevalent in written communication and are gradually mangling the beautiful English language into something incomprehensible, yet when the offenders are challenged they fail to even understand what they've done wrong. While I have no formal language qualifications beyond a GCSE in English and I'm not immune from getting things wrong, I do feel I have an above average grasp of my native tongue (which I hope is apparent in my writings on this blog) so what to me are such basic mistakes really do annoy me as it should be very easy to get these right. Don't get me wrong, I would never have a go at anyone who has a genuine communication difficulty such as dyslexia or similar, and I'm talking about what should be basic fundamentals of grammar learned at primary school.

Consider the following sentence: "Your write, we except Paypal has payment for are products". There are so many things wrong with that, yet it is made up entirely of valid English words and to a growing number of people appears to be a perfectly coherent sentence as they don't know any better.

Speak English please, you're in the UK now

While I very much enjoy my work as a software developer and postgraduate research student at a university, the working conditions I have to endure are starting to get to me: an attic room that is always hot and full of fellow students who speak only Arabic, giving it the nickname of the Middle East. I have the greatest of respect for other cultures and this university is a particularly multicultural place, but I'm sure I can't be the only one who finds it rude to come to another country and carry on speaking your native language in the presence of those who don't understand it.