[geeks] Anybody can borrow me $10k? hehe....

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2002 at 11:57:23AM -0500, s at avoidant.org wrote:
> Joshua D Boyd wrote:
> 
> 
> >Yes, the subject was pretty bad english.  "Anybody can lend me $10k?"
> >is also poor.  A better way to put it would be "Can anybody lend me
> >$10k?", or "May I please borrow $10k from somebody?".
> >
> >However, certain patterns of bad english have become common over the
> >years.  They are generally to be avoided, although they often aren't by
> >people who should no better, but think it the best use of school is to
> >do what the teacher says not to do.  These patterns are also used for
> >dramatic effect.  I'm hoping that was the intent here, but I don't see
> >what the effect was supposed to be.
> 
> Um, I'm not Tom, so I can't speak for what his intent was, but I do know 
> him in the flesh, and can vouch for the fact that he's not a native 
> English speaker. Perhaps that's a literal translation of what would be 
> correct syntax and sentence structure in his native german? I don't 
> know, and he's not around at the moment to ask.
> 
> I just assumed it was his ESL at work and dismissed it as such.

That could be two.  I assumed that the person I was replying to wasn't
the same as the person who wrote the original message.  That would
explain a thing or two.  I realize that not everyone on the list is
american, and that they may or may not get things like ThreeRingBinders
(something that a large issue was made of on another forum I watch), but
I do tend to forget that we might have people who are ESL.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd