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Those plural forms are sometimes referred to as European continental dialect of English and do not raise questions here. If we, Europeans have to use English as
by ivan_gammel 2y ago
Those plural forms are sometimes referred to as European continental dialect of English and do not raise questions here. If we, Europeans have to use English as lingua franca, we can and we will adapt it to our needs same way as Americans, Afro-Americans or Indians did. So my advice: just get used to it.
Edit: cultural possession of language is nonsense, it belongs to all speakers, native and non-native alike. Germans must get used to foreign influence on their language too and Ukrainians should stop fighting Russian language and start writing their own rules for it (what can piss Moscow more?)
- Semaphor 2y agoI had never heard of that, but Wikipedia has similar examples in "Euro English" [0], though there it is because similar words exist with s in other languages. I wonder if something like "advices" exists in another language? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Inflection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English#Inflection
- hydrolox 2y agoI think you can say it does? Ie in other languages, the plural of advice (which in English is advice, "I gave him a lot of advice") is spelled differently(with the plural ending). From my personal knowledge, in Russian advice is совет and "advices" (or advice pl.) is советы. In Spanish, advice is consejo and there is a plural consejos. This can probably be also translated (in both cases) as "tip" and"tips" or something similar.
- Semaphor 2y agoYeah, but at least the examples wikipedia has, are for similar words, not just applying random other grammatical rules: informations (French) -> informations (English) compétences -> competences
- t0mas88 2y agoThe Dutch may have some "rights" to adapt English. They're #1 in non-native English proficiency for 5 years in a row and surpassed Canada (considered native speakers) on overall English proficiency some years ago. One point of debate is that English in the Netherlands has become mostly American English over the last decades due to media influence. While originally "school English" in the Netherlands was British English.
- School-Cotton 2y ago> Canada (considered native speakers) A quarter of the population of Canada is in Quebec where the only official language is French and most people would not be considered native English speakers.
- Spivak 2y agoI actually go full-descriptivist on this and it erases all the posturing. If you're a speaker of English, native or otherwise, and you say or write something purposefully and don't consider it a mistake then it's correct. Wether other people will join you in your new usage is yet undetermined but also doesn't really matter. AAVE is the perfect example of this happening large scale in the real world.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y ago"Wether"—I see what you did there...
- vundercind 2y agoThere are multiple ways to define “correct”. I tend to favor: having the desired effect. This results in a “correct” that is highly flexible, but doesn’t label anything that one happens to choose as “correct”.