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re "its rings". I'm never quite sure whether to correct grammar/spelling or not in HN comments. On the one hand I know there are lots of people here for whom En
by sjcsjc 10y ago
re "its rings". I'm never quite sure whether to correct grammar/spelling or not in HN comments. On the one hand I know there are lots of people here for whom English is a second language and who might find it useful. On the other hand, I don't want to appear dickish. At work I generally ask my non-native-English-speaking colleagues if they want me to point out errors and then act accordingly. And every now and then one of them challenges my correction and I discover I'm wrong ;-)
- lorenzhs 10y agoAs a non-native speaker, I think there are some classes of errors like confusing homophones that native speakers are much more likely to make, e.g. "could of", their/there/they're, or even the above-mentioned its/it's. The latter two are covered very extensively in lessons, and "could of" is just so absurd to anyone who's had to study to learn the language that it doesn't even compute. I've generally decided not to comment on people's spelling and grammar on HN because it doesn't really add to the discussion. I do sometimes make a point of italicising the correct spelling in my response if I have something substantial to add to the discussion :)
- sjcsjc 10y agoGood idea. Thanks.
- raverbashing 10y agoYeah I concede correcting some mistakes might get annoying sometimes But as a non-native speaker myself the homophone mistakes really bother me (though I concede native speakers are likely to make these kind of mistakes in their native language - and I include myself in this) But it's a continuing effort, however I noticed this kind of mistake has increased in past years. I suspect autocorrect is to blame