As far as English goes, I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it. The great mass of people in the US and abroad tend to misuse our language in sundry and creative ways. A slip of the tongue here and there will probably be missed by most people.

I mention this because you simply can't be self-conscious when you learn a new language. The simple fact of the matter is that you are going to make mistakes. It is best to make friends with that fact, accept it, embrace it, and not shy away from it. Too many people are so afraid of making a mistake in their new language that they never use it. Because of this, they never improve. They fall into a vicious cycle which ends with them throwing their hands in the air in disgust.

In short, just start telling yourself that it really doesn't matter.

Rule 1) Don't sweat the small stuff.
Rule 2) Realize that it's all small stuff.

Francisko1:Probable that is a good idea.

Getuls Francisko

Greyshades:So to people like me who occasionally use verbal irony (sarcasm) when we write, how do we identify it, if not with quotes? Asterisks maybe? (*maybe*)

This idea helped a lot to me about the english language. Thank you.

Getuls Francisko

andogigi:As far as English goes, I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it. The great mass of people in the US and abroad tend to misuse our language in sundry and creative ways. A slip of the tongue here and there will probably be missed by most people.

I mention this because you simply can't be self-conscious when you learn a new language. The simple fact of the matter is that you are going to make mistakes. It is best to make friends with that fact, accept it, embrace it, and not shy away from it. Too many people are so afraid of making a mistake in their new language that they never use it. Because of this, they never improve. They fall into a vicious cycle which ends with them throwing their hands in the air in disgust.

In short, just start telling yourself that it really doesn't matter.

Rule 1) Don't sweat the small stuff.
Rule 2) Realize that it's all small stuff.

Proper usage of words (who, whom; good, well; etc.) is a pain in the butt after a while. People still understand you fine, right? If the original intended meaning is understood, it shouldn't matter too much (or not at all) on the usage of the words.

walkingonthesun:Proper usage of words (who, whom; good, well; etc.) is a pain in the butt after a while. People still understand you fine, right? If the original intended meaning is understood, it shouldn't matter too much (or not at all) on the usage of the words.

I would insist that if a majority of English speakers (especially educated ones) use "who" in a particular way, that way by definition is correct. Therefore "who/whom" is not a matter of correctness, just hypercorrectness.

The grammatical error that makes me cringe the most is something like "He gave the book to Katherine and I". It should be "Katherine and me". The reason this bothers me is because it doesn't even sound natural to the speaker—they're just saying it because they think it's "correct".

(My descriptivist ideology's two spesmiloj.)

Le Hibou:My conscience is troubling me... I was in the "10 items or less" queue at the supermarket, with exactly 10 items in my basket. Then I bought a packet of cigarettes from the dispenser just near the check-out till, so then I had eleven items in the basket. Should I have left that queue, and joined one of the other ones?

That's similar to something I did once, only, I didn't buy anything at the checkout and already had 15 items .

But once you're there, if the number is very close to 10 they can't complain, its not like they'll stop at 10 and go "Ah wait no sorry sir/madam, please leave this counter and go to another checkout". Unless they want to make their job harder....

You guys have "10 items or less" queues? I'd love that too, I hate it if I'm buying only a bar of chocolate and have to wait behind 4 people who need 3 minutes each for their purchases.

darkweasel:You guys have "10 items or less" queues? I'd love that too, I hate it if I'm buying only a bar of chocolate and have to wait behind 4 people who need 3 minutes each for their purchases.

Yeah the ones I've used are like information desks but you can buy stuff there (normally things they aren't allowed to sell in the main part of the supermarket like cigarettes, or impractical-to-shelf things like iTunes cards and phone credit recharge etc.

Don't you have them in Austria?

jchthys:The grammatical error that makes me cringe the most is something like "He gave the book to Katherine and I".

I find this error absolutely excruciating. Every Wednesday morning a company-wide email drops in my inbox with big red bold letters saying Fire alarm test today at 12:00pm. Please email Gordon and I to confirm you heard it. Drives me absolutely mad! Worst thing is I know for sure if I politely pointed out the error I'd get into some silly argument along the lines of "well my teacher always told me to say Gordon and I, not me and Gordon." Sigh.

To be perfectly fair, there is some rational behind using "to ... and I" being that its almost a sign of high self respect, to the point where ones pronoun suddenly becomes untouchable (in the sense that "I" does not get declined by some). It's completely illogical, considering we say "to me" and not "to I", yet "to .... and I".

But anyway, it's what people use, so its not so much an error as an idiosyncrasy of the language. And its not just "to .... and I", rather, it's also present in the accusative. If you say "La hundo manĝis min kaj katon" in English, it's likely going to turn out as "The dog ate me and my cat" if you mention yourself first, but "The dog ate my cat and I" if you mention yourself last. It seems to have something to do with "me" being increasingly used less for the accusative but more as the declined version of "I" when immediately proceeded by the verb or particle declining it - seemingly, "and" does not count.

This seemingly prevalent feature also seems to be influenced by "object" vs. "subject" - not necessarily the same as "nominative" vs. "accusative" - for example, "The man gave a letter to you and I, don't you remember?" may be chosen of "me and you" because the speaker is possibly subconsciously asserting a sort of "I remember getting the letter" attitude. This would parallel in Japanese with "wa" and "ga"/"wo" - "wa" can be used for the accusative subject or nominative subject, and it is up to the audience to assume or deduce the case of the noun.

Nonetheless, people need to be informed about all the different ways of speaking, and be further informed that "to ... and me" is historically the better way to phrase it. But they can say ".... and I" for all I care, even if it might be just a mundane example of hypercorrectness brought on by people thinking/being taught that "and me" is wrong in ALL cases including the accusative - after all to a child, "and" is just as much a particle as "to" or "of" is, so variation is natural I guess considering we have barely even an accusative case in English.

ceigered:

darkweasel:You guys have "10 items or less" queues? I'd love that too, I hate it if I'm buying only a bar of chocolate and have to wait behind 4 people who need 3 minutes each for their purchases.

Yeah the ones I've used are like information desks but you can buy stuff there (normally things they aren't allowed to sell in the main part of the supermarket like cigarettes, or impractical-to-shelf things like iTunes cards and phone credit recharge etc.

Don't you have them in Austria?

No, there's just several queues near the supermarket's exit, without any difference "xx items or less". However, some people are polite enough to let others who have only a few items get in front of them.

For getting back to the topic: It's similar in German, barely anyone obeys all the grammar rules. One author (Bastian Sick) even wrote some books about common errors, like using main clause word order after weil (= because), overuse of the preposition wo (= where), overuse of English-like style, and so on. Everyone who has trouble learning German should read these books and find out that we don't always obey all these strange rules either.