3 ms·
> That being said, I do consider contemporary English to be technically superior to Italian in almost all respects. It's easier, more flexible, more expressive
by wolfgke 11y ago
>
That being said, I do consider contemporary English to be technically superior to Italian in almost all respects. It's easier, more flexible, more expressive, more concise, and more complete. The only exception would be its utter, inexcusable, almost criminal, irregular spelling.
For German I consider it exactly the other way round. German is much more exact: Long compound substantives are very easy to express in German but difficult in English (in this sense I consider German as more expressive and concise). The grammar in German might be ugly and unforgiving (it really could be simplified - just my opinion) but makes it much more complicated to express sentences that can be misunderstood. English might be easy to learn at the beginning, but becoming really good in English takes a horrible amount of time. For example it is in my opinion much easier to become good in French than in English. Additionally there is no really "standard English" as there is in French or in German (Hochdeutsch). What is actually the authoritative ressource for English to clear up what spelling, punctuation etc. really is the correct one?
- kwhitefoot 11y agoThe correct one is whichever works best at the time. In English it is, or use to be, common to use different registers for different occasions.
- wolfgke 11y agoHow can one even say then that a spelling a punctuation is wrong in English if there is no authoritative ressource with which one can answer the question?
- unlikelymordant 11y agoas long as you are consistent, it really doesn't matter. Even in academic or technical writing (i am in Australia), you can use american spellings or british spellings and noone really cares. Perhaps you have to let go of the "one true way" of spelling/grammar, if things seem to work fine without it.
- wolfgke 11y agoI rather think about school: How can teachers even mark wrong spelling if there is no standardized spelling? The same holds for punctuation of course, for which up to now I really could not find any ressource with authoritative character where to put commas in the English language.
- GunboatDiplomat 11y agoThere are specific guides within certain contexts. An educational setting may use the Meriam-Webster dictionary as the definitive for spelling, and the English textbook as the definitive for punctuation. Outside of specific contexts, there is no absolutely correct way of doing things.
- GunboatDiplomat 11y agoThe metric is "Did the message get passed, and did I not sound like an idiot?"
- vanilla-almond 11y agoThere are many authoritative resources. Pick a dictionary or thesaurus or a grammar guide from the version of English you want to learn and use that as your reference. When I say a version of English I mean British English or American English or Canadian English or Australian English or some other version of English. They all have differences in spelling (colour vs color etc) and differences in phrases and idioms. English is so varied because it has travelled all over the world and changed in so many ways as a result - hence the forementioned varieties of English. For better or worse, it has become the international language of science, technology, business, and entertainment. In our internet age, that means it changes even more rapidly than other languages that don't have such global reach.
- gozur88 11y agoThere's pretty wide agreement among textbooks and style manuals for English spelling and punctuation. They do differ a bit at the edge cases, but particularly when it comes to spelling people are going to assume you're uneducated if you go your own way.
- algebras 11y agoIt's as if you are describing the differences between Java and Scheme :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- GunboatDiplomat 11y agoThere is no authoritative source for English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Common usage decides what is correct, essentially. Organizations or groups may decide to use certain style guides, for example, the APA style guide or the Chicago Manual of Style.
- jccalhoun 11y agoEnglish grammar and spelling are like manners and customs. There is no single "right" way to be polite but there are things that are commonly accepted by most people to be impolite and therefore "wrong." It can be hard and confusing. I have a phd in the humanities and I still find myself questioning my grammar or struggling to explain why something a student wrote in a paper is wrong. (I usually fall back on things like "this is unclear" and "it would be more elegant to write something like this..." But like manners or even music, once you have internalized the "rules" you know when you can break them and when you can't. Would it be better to have a single official standard English? Maybe but good luck getting all the English-speaking countries to agree on that.