# Non-native-English-speaking Dopers, ask your English questions here **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 4, 2006, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405 "2006-05-04T16:23:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/61 "2006-05-06T16:10:00Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > I’m going to stick my neck out here and earn the ire of many by saying that shined is always wrong. You may have someone shine your shoes (if you are in america and they are incapable of polishing them) but afterwards they are shiny, or have been polished. They are not shined, nor have they been shone. It’s like betterified - it might seem sensible and logical, but it’s just incorrect. > Probably for no good reason other than a local dialect in 3rd century Saxony or Wessex or whatever, but it’s still wrong. Give it another 150 years and it will be correct, but for now please try to avoid shined. I love when random people just make up new rules for language. It’s neat when folks who have no particular education in any field pertinent to the question declare themselves arbiters of what’s correct and what’s incorrect. For the record, “shined” as in “shined his shoes” is perfectly natural and grammatical, whatever **slaphead** may say. > [@AskNott](#): > > Antisemitism. The Semites are the group that gave rise to both the Jews and the Arabs (descendants of Shem, or something.) Today, antisemitic usually means anti-Jewish, but when an arab hates a Jew, is that really antisemitism? Sometimes, I wonder. > [@Webster's](#): > > antisemitic (adj) > > 1. having or showing prejudice against Jews > 2. discriminating against or persecuting Jews It’s not that complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/62 "2006-05-06T19:33:41Z")
Okay, here goes… 1. When do you use “wouid” and “could”, and when do you use “will” and “can”? 2. The use of “which is” vs. “that is”. 3. Let say I have this sentence “He walked up to the bartender and asked him for a drink” – is it understood that the ‘him’ refered to the bartender? 4. Is it “Firstly, we need to consider…” or “First, we need to consider…”? ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/63 "2006-05-06T20:23:45Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > and anti-New Deal I’ve always been curious about this: I make it a point to hyphenate the whole string of words that are connected to each other (anti-New-Deal) so that there’s absolutely no room for confusion as to which words belong to which. Does anyone else do this? > [@Sal Ammoniac](#): > > “Pommies” apparently, by what I’ve read on this board, derives – implausibly as it may seem – from “pomegranite,” While a pomegranite might be deliciously crunchy, the indubitably Jewish fruit you’re looking to describe is called a **pomegranate**. > [@Cluricaun](#): > > I think that it’s because you speak the language better than we do. Even the most dumb as a sack of doorknobs person on the street in England sounds educated and refined to our ears, just through pronunciation. Y’all just talk nice. The funny thing is that it’s all psychology. The American version is older and more refined, as we’ve mutilated the language less since the Pilgrims came over. (Can’t really say “since we came over”, as the first American in my family hit New York around 1910.) But the insistence by both cultures that Received Pronunciation (the British version) is higher-class is bolstered by the fact that it’s spoken by fluffed-up, publicly-salaried royalty and accepted by all. > [@Kotick](#): > > Pie is good too, but I still dont get it. I cant picture the regular baker as a pushover. Not so much the baker as the food. Creampuffs, pies and cakes are all easy to eat, and notice that in (American, at least) English “easy” has a couple of other meanings–it not only means “not difficult”, but also “relaxing” (Easy Street, easy as Sunday morning) and “delightful” (easy on the eyes) and “calm” (“Easy, man! Don’t lose your cool.”) Also note that “facile”, which to a speaker of some Latinate languages would seem to mean “easy” in the first sense, more often means “superficial” or “specious”. You can apply most of these definitions to tasty bakery delights. I see “easy as pie”, “piece of cake” and “creampuff” to be a generalization of the latter meanings to the first one. > [@AskNott](#): > > Not surprisingly, (folklore, y’know) I heard exactly the opposite. One of the guys who broadcasts the Chicago White Sox games on WGN-TV explained it this way. In baseball, it’s a pop fly ball that falls right in a fielder’s glove where he was standing. In the old grocery stores, where the manager would take your order and go get it himself, some had a long pole with a hook for the high shelves. He could snag a can of corn off the top shelf, and it would drop right into his hand. That’s the explanation I heard from the announcers in Triple Play 2000 for the PlayStation. Seems to make more sense, as it’s directly related to the flight path of the ball in its specific meaning. > [@ExtraKun](#): > > 1. When do you use “wouid” and “could”, and when do you use “will” and “can”? **Excalibre** will probably have a better answer for this, but I think it would help to think of “would” and “could” as subjunctive and “will” and “can” as simple present tense. I **would** watch the hockey game if I **could** put off working on my presentation, but I **can’t** , so I **will** do my work again. “Would” and “could” are hopeful and optimistic, while “will” and “can” are strictly pragmatic. Does that help? > [@ExtraKun](#): > > 1. The use of “which is” vs. “that is”. I’ve always interpreted that as being a speaker preference. “Which is” sounds more formal to me; unless it’s used when talking about people, in which case it sounds depersonalizing to me. I don’t have any scientific understanding of the issue at all, though. > [@ExtraKun](#): > > 1. Let say I have this sentence “He walked up to the bartender and asked him for a drink” – is it understood that the ‘him’ refered to the bartender? Yes. “Himself” is the reflexive verb and “him” won’t swing that way. Given that there are only two males in the picture, and the patron is the actor, “himself” can only mean the patron and “him” can only mean the bartender. It gets stickier if you throw the patron’s male friend into the sentence, but in this case context would show that the bartender is clearly the only person worth asking for a drink if the setting is a bar. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/64 "2006-05-06T22:21:36Z")
> [@ExtraKun](#): > > 1. The use of “which is” vs. “that is”. With no comma, they basically mean the same thing: 1. It’s the car which is going to take you to work today. 2. It’s the car that is going to take you to work today. They mean exactly the same thing. However, if you put a comma before the “which,” it takes on a new meaning. 1. That’s the door, which leads to Don’s room. 2. That’s the door that leads to Don’s room. In the first sentence, there is probably only a single door, and the speaker is merely clarifying where it leads. In the second, there are probably multiple doors, and the speaker is pointing out which of them leads to Don’s room. ---
**Author:** ![Wensleydale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@Wensleydale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wensleydale)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/65 "2006-05-06T22:32:40Z")
I thought pommie came from POME which meant Prisoner of Mother England (as many British convicts were transported to Australia) which would sort of be like how GI came about, though how accurate this is I do not know. Another confusing expression is when someone says “be that as it may” why is it phrased like that and not something like “be that as it is”? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/66 "2006-05-06T22:48:12Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > **Excalibre** will probably have a better answer for this, but I think it would help to think of “would” and “could” as subjunctive and “will” and “can” as simple present tense. I **would** watch the hockey game if I **could** put off working on my presentation, but I **can’t** , so I **will** do my work again. > > “Would” and “could” are hopeful and optimistic, while “will” and “can” are strictly pragmatic. Does that help? I’m flattered that you think I can explain English modal verb usage. 🙂 I haven’t studied English much, so the most I can do is offer some generalizations. “Would” and “could” come, originally, from past tense versions of “will” and “can”, although arguably they’re mostly interpreted as separate verbs entirely nowadays. English has no true subjunctive except in sentences like _I insist that she be flogged_ or _God grant me the serenity to avoid committing multiple homicide_; the use of the past tense of verbs in sentences like _If I had a million dollars, I’d buy you a monkey_ is very similar to uses of the subjunctive in Romance languages, so it’s often called that, but from a strictly syntactic point of view, it’s probably best regarded as a use of the past tense - which is not exclusively used for the past tense. The past tense in that sentence is used to express the fact that it’s counterfactual - \*If I had a million dollars (but of course I don’t) . . . \* - the past tense makes the action described seem a bit more distant from the speaker. In the same way, the past tense of “will” and “can” is used to express counterfactuality. So _If I have time, I will conquer Lithuania_ suggests that it’s a possibility - but switch it into the past tense and you get this: _If I had time, I would conquer Lithuania_. Suddenly it’s clear that the speaker _doesn’t_ have time and therefore _won’t_ conquer Lithuania. Likewise with _can_: _I can build the bomb for you by Friday_ means you’re likely to do it. _I could build the bomb for you by Friday_ makes it less likely - you expect it to be followed by _except I’ve given up my career as an international terrorist_ or _if you paid me an extra hundred thousand dollars_. Both are also used to express actual past time. _I can kill you a hundred different ways with just my fingertips_ is present tense, while if you want to describe the past, you use _could_: _Way back in the day when I was a ninja, I could kill a hundred different ways with just my fingertips_. Don’t treat this as comprehensive: using modals is complicated and frankly I just don’t know all that much about it. Also, I can’t find my goddamn English grammar because my place is a horrific, disgusting mess. But this is the basics, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/67 "2006-05-06T22:51:06Z")
> [@Wensleydale](#): > > I thought pommie came from POME which meant Prisoner of Mother England Three rules about etymological explanations which rely on acronyms. 1. Doubt 2. Doubt 3. Doubt Pom/Pommie doesn’t come from that, any more that For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge gave rise to an expletive. (You can find plenty of explanations which insists that’s the origin of the f-word.) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/68 "2006-05-06T22:53:34Z")
> [@gum](#): > > Why so many different pronunciations of the ‘ou’ sound? The only theory I’ve come across that makes sense, for the generally nonsensical state of English spelling and not just those examples is: Movable-type presses came to England while illiteracy was still widespread, the language in its modern form was still young, and there were few generally accepted spellings. Legend has it that Shakespeare himself spelled his name in dozens of different ways. The first English mass-market printing shops felt free to spell words any way they thought made sense, or sometimes didn’t know any better, and they didn’t consult with each other but each made their own spelling rules. Even when they conscientiously tried to make sense, their own regional accents, which also varied and still vary with time, defined their chosen spellings. The printed forms of words had more, well, legitimacy than their competitors and the printed variants competed with each other to be the “official” spellings. It’s essentially a coincidence that the “victorious” spellings of so many words with different vowel sounds use different printers’ use of the “ou” combination. American variants of English spellings generally reflect the efforts of Noah Webster, who created an American dictionary in the early 19th century specifically to set the American language apart from and on an equal basis with the British version. Webster’s dictionary was generally adopted by American schools out of national pride as much as any other reason. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/69 "2006-05-06T22:53:47Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I’m flattered that you think I can explain English modal verb usage. I don’t really have any idea what your specialty is and, to be honest, you might as well be God of Language for all I know (I was kind of hoping you were; I’m a little disappointd. 😉 ) Speaking of which, could you kindly pop into [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7369231#post7369231)? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/70 "2006-05-06T23:55:00Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > which is not exclusively used for the past tense. Which is not exclusively used for past _time_, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/71 "2006-05-06T23:59:04Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I don’t really have any idea what your specialty is and, to be honest, you might as well be God of Language for all I know (I was kind of hoping you were; I’m a little disappointd. 😉 ) > > Speaking of which, could you kindly pop into [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7369231#post7369231)? I’m not a linguist; I just read a lot of linguistics books and have taken a number of classes on it. I’m thinking of going to grad school and studying linguistics, but I’m more or less just a well-read amateur. So I couldn’t really give you career advice. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/72 "2006-05-07T00:13:16Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I’m not a linguist; I just read a lot of linguistics books and have taken a number of classes on it. I’m thinking of going to grad school and studying linguistics, but I’m more or less just a well-read amateur. So I couldn’t really give you career advice. Oh. I thought you were, as I’ve seen you post a lot of stuff about linguistics and you have a lot of specialized knowledge in the area…now that I think about it, you’ve always carefully worded your posts so as not to imply that you’re a linguist, but that zoomed right over my head. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/73 "2006-05-10T00:56:15Z")
> [@gum](#): > > Why so many different pronunciations of the ‘ou’ sound?: > > Plough > Dough > Would > Four > Enough > Melbourne To extend the question a little bit, although not to answer it, unfortunately, you might want to look for a Dr. Seuss story called “The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough,” which explores the numerous ways you can pronounce “-ough” (17 different ways, IIRC) > [@ExtraKun](#): > > 1. Let say I have this sentence “He walked up to the bartender and asked him for a drink” – is it understood that the ‘him’ refered to the bartender? > > 2. Is it “Firstly, we need to consider…” or “First, we need to consider…”? 1. Yeah, especially since that’s what bartenders do. The way it’s phrased, it’s clearly that the same guy both (A) walked up to the bartender, and (B) asked him for a drink. If instead, you said, “He walked up to the bartender, and he asked him for a drink,” it might be slightly ambiguous, but still pretty clear probably. 2. I would choose “first” but I don’t think “firstly” is necessarily wrong; it just sounds weird. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/74 "2006-05-10T02:10:43Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > The heck are you talking about? The English invented a language they cannot speak. Just try and watch Dr. Who without the subtitles turned on. 🙂 I for one (born and raised in Ohio, spent a few years in Georgia) have never had a problem understanding most English accents, especially those on Dr. Who. And I consider it one of my finest achievements as a Mom that both my kids can understand a British accent as heard on TV . Maybe it’s because we watched every Mystery! and Masterpiece Theater and Are You Being Served? and Dr. Who and Blake’s 7 episode ever aired. You just develop an ear for it. And yes, let a man with a British accent walk into my store and I am ready to give him anything he wants! ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/75 "2006-05-11T19:00:58Z")
> [@kittenblue](#): > > And yes, let a man with a British accent walk into my store and I am ready to give him anything he wants! Pardon me, miss, but did you mean an **English** accent? I would be delighted to explain the difference over a cup of tea… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/76 "2006-05-11T20:37:16Z")
Damn Limeys. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Coil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Coil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coil)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/77 "2006-05-12T09:17:27Z")
> [@Kotick](#): > > Ok, I have got one: why do you say “piece of cake” to something that is easy? I mean, obviously it’s easy to gobble down a piece of cake, but I have not heard that as a saying in Scandinavia. Well there’s “Lätt som en plätt” (easy as a small pancake :)) in Swedish which is somewhat similar. ---
**Author:** ![Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silence_of_the_clams)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/78 "2006-05-12T09:36:46Z")
> [@Coil](#): > > Well there’s “Lätt som en plätt” (easy as a small pancake :)) in Swedish which is somewhat similar. Good onion, sorry, I mean on ya, mate! (I still feel it sounds like onion, what a soup). I guess you swedes have a lighter look on life than us weatherbeaten and sulky norwegians 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/79 "2006-05-12T10:16:47Z")
When I was in Philly, I ran into a strange phenomenon. People insisted in pronouncing the first word of my lastname (Ochoa) as “okoa”. The Italians don’t do it, they know Spanish Ch sounds, well, ch-as-in-chocolate (or, as an Italian would put it, “ci comme il cioccolate”) I figure this is somehow related to the fact that Philli-ers also pronounce Schauilkill (sp? anyway, the river) as “skoki”. Any other places where people think a “ch” is a “k”? The whole pronunciation thing is pretty befuddling, to me it’s like English is actually two different languages (spoken and written), or maybe three or four (being in a meeting with Scots and Texans can be fun). ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405/80 "2006-05-12T10:24:06Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve heard “th” pronounced /f/ in middle-class London accents as well. _shudder_ This isn’t just restricted to London. For example, the stronger accents from my hometown (far away from London, thank God) will pronounce ‘th’ as ‘f’ and ‘tt’ as ‘ck’, ‘bockle’ instead of ‘bottle’ etc. I think it’s an attribute of any relatively strong English accent, although I’m probably wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-native-english-speaking-dopers-ask-your-english-questions-here/355405.md?page=5)