You strike me as one who might appreciate having his English corrected so he may learn, so:
I am residing in South-East Asia for the last decade or so.
This should be, "I have been residing..." Your residing during the last decade has been completed and is in the past, so you should use the perfect tense. I suppose some people might argue that, logically, using the present tense conveys that you're still living there, but that is definitely a non-standard usage. If you wanted to explicitly state that you are still there, you should do that separately, e.g. "...and am still living here."
Also, while "residing" is certainly correct, I think it's more common and natural to say, "I have been living..." but that is a matter of opinion.
Give or take, both dialects are quite similar; and as far as the origins goes, it is direct word-to-word translation of Chinese phrases into English; though they have evolved over time with many more borrowed words and expressions.
This would be more clear: "Both dialects are quite similar. They are direct word-to-word translations of Chinese phrases into English, though they have evolved over time with many more borrowed words and expressions."
Though I find these dialects are an energy efficient way of speaking English, and somewhat amusing to listen; I must confess that I find them nothing more than a nuisance, especially in a professional working environment.
"amusing to listen" should be "amusing to listen to", because the dialects are not doing the listening. Also, the semicolon should be replaced with a comma, because using "Though" at the beginning makes the part before the semicolon a dependant clause.
Most of the time, they do not understand what I am talking about, and gives me strange looks.
"gives" should be "give" because the subject, "they," is plural.
Then, I happen to run into the problem of misunderstanding instructions from my bosses, now that was pretty bad and costly.
You don't need a comma after "Then" because it's just one word. Also, it might be clearer to say "I also..." rather than "Then." The second clause, "now that was..." should be a separate sentence, not a clause separated by a comma.
On the other end, they them selves have this high esteem that they speak proper English, since most of them spoken or studied in English medium since a very young age.
You probably meant, "On the other hand," which is a common metaphor, although what you said is not wrong, just a different metaphor. "them selves" is one word, not two. It would be clearer to say, "They think they speak English well because most of them..." Finally, "most of them spoken or studied in English medium since a very young age" should be: "most of them have spoken or studied in English since a very young age." Note the use of the perfect tense, "have spoken," because it's something completed in the past. "medium" isn't necessary or correct; if you wanted to use it, you should say, "in the English language."
Though I admit I am not perfect (after all, English is still my second tongue), I always thrive to write grammatically correct English, even when I am sending a text message. All in all, getting the right message delivered is much important than anything else in any form of communication. It puzzles me why internet age kids do not pay much attention, nor put effort in proper communication skills these days.
You meant "strive" not "thrive"; they are completely different words. "is much important" should be "is much more important", because you're comparing it with "anything else."
Most of these are very minor issues, and I only mention them because I suspect you may appreciate it. Your English is very, very good for a non-native speaker. You write better than many native speakers!
Spelling and grammar checkers are tools. Calculators are tools. Hammers are tools. If we don't know how to control a hammer, and just let it fall, we hit our thumbs and it hurts. If we don't know how to control our software we hurt ourselves and others with our mistakes.
Very insightful. Makes me think of representative government. If we don't know how to control our tools--I mean, representatives--they hurt us and others with their mistakes.
When you were learning to read, did you read everything out loud, or did you read "to yourself" also? I've heard that in ancient times, nothing was read silently. And in fact, ancient manuscripts support this idea, since they lacked punctuation and spacing, requiring one to pronounce it verbally to understand word and sentence separation.
Yeah, there may be some "nature" to it, but I think it's mostly "nurture." My mom taught me to read at an early age, and I certainly read more quickly than speech. However, the content also matters: when I'm reading a deep, thought-provoking book, or a detailed academic text, it takes much more time and effort to fully absorb and understand the ideas.
You may be right. Confirmation bias may be part of the issue.
However, in my opinion, I think your average first-world citizen has come to value good grammar and spelling less than was the case before the Internet became so widely used. It used to be that children would do most of their writing in school, where a teacher graded it and corrected mistakes.
Now children, teens, and even young adults, output more words into emails, comments, and text messages than in graded assignments, and their uncorrected, bad habits even blend over into the academic ones. They value quantity over quality; thoughtfulness and correctness aren't as important as expressing oneself as quickly as possible. It takes too much effort to spell "you" or "are," or to hit Shift, or type a period--certainly too much to search Google for an answer rather than posting a comment and waiting for someone else to run the search for them.
This is both a positive and a negative of the Internet: it gives equal time to both the greatest and lowest common denominators.
Says who? Strunk and White? That's full of arbitrary rules dreamed up to sell the book itself. Whether one chooses to follow them is not a matter of correctness.
I'm very much in favor of thoughtful, clear written communication that uses good grammar, but some of the issues considered to be grammatical problems are merely matters of preference. Humans are often rather self-important and think their preferences are the correct ones.
I'm not saying one nation is better than the other--that's entirely subjective. But there are some points on which Germany loses, such as freedom of speech. It's hard to put a price on freedom, but some recognize it to be human lives.
I looked at your page. That's interesting, but I noticed this:
"Let’s assume each ratepayer (home, business) paid for his own underground service to the next ratepayer (so, you pay for the line from your house to your next door neighbor’s)."
As far as I know, I've never lived in a home which was connected to the grid through my neighbor's house, and his to the next, etc. That could lead to some awful cascade failures if some guy up the street decided to do some digging in his back yard.
1. The Global Average Temperature Anomaly is within the margin of error. Therefore it is inconclusive, at best, and disproves anthropogenic global warming, at worst.
2. The definition of an extreme weather event is subjective, is it not? Who decides whether a high temperature is extreme? Because we haven't recorded such a high before in that location? What if there were errors in the previous measurements? What if it reached that high shortly before temperatures were ever recorded? This kind of data is inconclusive, at best. It's illogical to say that it proves anything other than that the weather is always the weather. If the earth has been around for millions of years, who's to say that the few years in which we've measured and recorded weather and temperature data has any claims to what is "normal"?
If the claims on this page are true, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas at all, and in fact the USA is not among those who need to reduce their emissions: http://drtimball.com/2011/whether-it-is-warming-or-climate-change-it-cannot-be-the-co2/ This page also claims, "According to the IPCC, who produce the original numbers, humans produce approximately 9 gigatons of CO2 per year. This is within the error factor for the amount of CO2 from at least two natural sources.... Spread the human annual production across the planet and it doesn't even show on the world map." If his claims are true, then either we need to crack down on those flatulent whales in the ocean, or we need to forget about CO2 and recognize that it's a political issue used by special interest groups to effect their own, self-beneficial agenda. The latter has been documented as a political movement beginning decades ago, encouraging followers to use AGW as a vehicle to further unrelated goals.
If a request at one node always corresponds with unencrypted traffic at another node and no other node reliably corresponds (or always corresponds later) then you know that that node is originating the traffic.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you secretly one of the writers for Monty Python?
You strike me as one who might appreciate having his English corrected so he may learn, so:
I am residing in South-East Asia for the last decade or so.
This should be, "I have been residing..." Your residing during the last decade has been completed and is in the past, so you should use the perfect tense. I suppose some people might argue that, logically, using the present tense conveys that you're still living there, but that is definitely a non-standard usage. If you wanted to explicitly state that you are still there, you should do that separately, e.g. "...and am still living here."
Also, while "residing" is certainly correct, I think it's more common and natural to say, "I have been living..." but that is a matter of opinion.
Give or take, both dialects are quite similar; and as far as the origins goes, it is direct word-to-word translation of Chinese phrases into English; though they have evolved over time with many more borrowed words and expressions.
This would be more clear: "Both dialects are quite similar. They are direct word-to-word translations of Chinese phrases into English, though they have evolved over time with many more borrowed words and expressions."
Though I find these dialects are an energy efficient way of speaking English, and somewhat amusing to listen; I must confess that I find them nothing more than a nuisance, especially in a professional working environment.
"amusing to listen" should be "amusing to listen to", because the dialects are not doing the listening. Also, the semicolon should be replaced with a comma, because using "Though" at the beginning makes the part before the semicolon a dependant clause.
Most of the time, they do not understand what I am talking about, and gives me strange looks.
"gives" should be "give" because the subject, "they," is plural.
Then, I happen to run into the problem of misunderstanding instructions from my bosses, now that was pretty bad and costly.
You don't need a comma after "Then" because it's just one word. Also, it might be clearer to say "I also..." rather than "Then." The second clause, "now that was..." should be a separate sentence, not a clause separated by a comma.
On the other end, they them selves have this high esteem that they speak proper English, since most of them spoken or studied in English medium since a very young age.
You probably meant, "On the other hand," which is a common metaphor, although what you said is not wrong, just a different metaphor. "them selves" is one word, not two. It would be clearer to say, "They think they speak English well because most of them..." Finally, "most of them spoken or studied in English medium since a very young age" should be: "most of them have spoken or studied in English since a very young age." Note the use of the perfect tense, "have spoken," because it's something completed in the past. "medium" isn't necessary or correct; if you wanted to use it, you should say, "in the English language."
Though I admit I am not perfect (after all, English is still my second tongue), I always thrive to write grammatically correct English, even when I am sending a text message. All in all, getting the right message delivered is much important than anything else in any form of communication. It puzzles me why internet age kids do not pay much attention, nor put effort in proper communication skills these days.
You meant "strive" not "thrive"; they are completely different words. "is much important" should be "is much more important", because you're comparing it with "anything else."
Most of these are very minor issues, and I only mention them because I suspect you may appreciate it. Your English is very, very good for a non-native speaker. You write better than many native speakers!
What is the that/which issue?
Spelling and grammar checkers are tools. Calculators are tools. Hammers are tools. If we don't know how to control a hammer, and just let it fall, we hit our thumbs and it hurts. If we don't know how to control our software we hurt ourselves and others with our mistakes.
Very insightful. Makes me think of representative government. If we don't know how to control our tools--I mean, representatives--they hurt us and others with their mistakes.
When you were learning to read, did you read everything out loud, or did you read "to yourself" also? I've heard that in ancient times, nothing was read silently. And in fact, ancient manuscripts support this idea, since they lacked punctuation and spacing, requiring one to pronounce it verbally to understand word and sentence separation.
Yeah, there may be some "nature" to it, but I think it's mostly "nurture." My mom taught me to read at an early age, and I certainly read more quickly than speech. However, the content also matters: when I'm reading a deep, thought-provoking book, or a detailed academic text, it takes much more time and effort to fully absorb and understand the ideas.
You may be right. Confirmation bias may be part of the issue.
However, in my opinion, I think your average first-world citizen has come to value good grammar and spelling less than was the case before the Internet became so widely used. It used to be that children would do most of their writing in school, where a teacher graded it and corrected mistakes.
Now children, teens, and even young adults, output more words into emails, comments, and text messages than in graded assignments, and their uncorrected, bad habits even blend over into the academic ones. They value quantity over quality; thoughtfulness and correctness aren't as important as expressing oneself as quickly as possible. It takes too much effort to spell "you" or "are," or to hit Shift, or type a period--certainly too much to search Google for an answer rather than posting a comment and waiting for someone else to run the search for them.
This is both a positive and a negative of the Internet: it gives equal time to both the greatest and lowest common denominators.
Strunk and White is full of arbitrary rules dreamed up to sell the book itself. Should a self-appointed arbiter be abided by?
Did you come up with that yourself?
Says who? Strunk and White? That's full of arbitrary rules dreamed up to sell the book itself. Whether one chooses to follow them is not a matter of correctness.
I'm very much in favor of thoughtful, clear written communication that uses good grammar, but some of the issues considered to be grammatical problems are merely matters of preference. Humans are often rather self-important and think their preferences are the correct ones.
Is that an issue of grammar or punctuation?
Your sig is dangerously thought-provoking.
most Texans also tend to have portable generators
What?
I'm not saying one nation is better than the other--that's entirely subjective. But there are some points on which Germany loses, such as freedom of speech. It's hard to put a price on freedom, but some recognize it to be human lives.
I looked at your page. That's interesting, but I noticed this:
"Let’s assume each ratepayer (home, business) paid for his own underground service to the next ratepayer (so, you pay for the line from your house to your next door neighbor’s)."
As far as I know, I've never lived in a home which was connected to the grid through my neighbor's house, and his to the next, etc. That could lead to some awful cascade failures if some guy up the street decided to do some digging in his back yard.
This page disagrees with that data: http://drtimball.com/2011/whether-it-is-warming-or-climate-change-it-cannot-be-the-co2/
What does 36 years prove? What does 5 years prove? How long has the earth been around? Who's the one who can't see the big picture?
1. The Global Average Temperature Anomaly is within the margin of error. Therefore it is inconclusive, at best, and disproves anthropogenic global warming, at worst.
2. The definition of an extreme weather event is subjective, is it not? Who decides whether a high temperature is extreme? Because we haven't recorded such a high before in that location? What if there were errors in the previous measurements? What if it reached that high shortly before temperatures were ever recorded? This kind of data is inconclusive, at best. It's illogical to say that it proves anything other than that the weather is always the weather. If the earth has been around for millions of years, who's to say that the few years in which we've measured and recorded weather and temperature data has any claims to what is "normal"?
If the claims on this page are true, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas at all, and in fact the USA is not among those who need to reduce their emissions: http://drtimball.com/2011/whether-it-is-warming-or-climate-change-it-cannot-be-the-co2/ This page also claims, "According to the IPCC, who produce the original numbers, humans produce approximately 9 gigatons of CO2 per year. This is within the error factor for the amount of CO2 from at least two natural sources. ... Spread the human annual production across the planet and it doesn't even show on the world map." If his claims are true, then either we need to crack down on those flatulent whales in the ocean, or we need to forget about CO2 and recognize that it's a political issue used by special interest groups to effect their own, self-beneficial agenda. The latter has been documented as a political movement beginning decades ago, encouraging followers to use AGW as a vehicle to further unrelated goals.
:/
Coerced?
If a request at one node always corresponds with unencrypted traffic at another node and no other node reliably corresponds (or always corresponds later) then you know that that node is originating the traffic.
Sounds like you're confusing Freenet with Tor.
Now you're starting
"Brevity is the essence of wit."
Right--so the next time someone says, "F you!" to me, I'll just assume he thought I asked how he was doing...
Well? :)