I agree with each and every word Erinja has written in this post.

BTW, I'm sure I must have commited spelling and/or grammar mistakes in this forum, and I appreciate your putting up with them. Nevertheless, once in a while and in a kind manner, your corrections would also be appreciated.

Regards,

Daniel

erinja:Seriously, as regards the poll, if you correct every single bit of bad grammar you hear, you will be spending your entire time correcting people rather than listening to them. There's no shortage of fluent speakers of faulty Esperanto. So most of the time people don't go around correcting each other, unless a beginner specifically asks you to correct their errors, or unless a beginner is clearly interested in getting it right, then you might mention to them in passing at some point, "by the way, boli is only intransitive". There is usually one person in each active Esperanto group who has a reputation for going around correcting people all the time. This person is usually not liked very much, and thought of as a jerk.

The maximum that I will normally do is to answer the person but using correct grammar, or to work in a way to contribute to the conversation, but correctly. So if someone were to say "Mi bolas la akvon", I could say something like "Mia amiko eĉ ne kapablas boligi akvon!"

I correct beginners' lessons so I do spend a lot of time correcting grammar. When they write a personal note to me in Esperanto, attached to the lesson, I tend to correct that as well. But if they send me a personal message outside of the lessons, I don't correct the grammar unless they specifically asked me to.

It's not that it's "acceptable" to speak with incorrect grammar; it's more like, we choose to be polite to one another by not correcting each other constantly. It isn't acceptable to speak with poor English grammar, but I can't see myself going around correcting people all the time. Particularly if they are speaking English as a second language, you want to be sensitive and not make them feel bad.

ceigered:

sudanglo:En la komenco Z kreis la lingvon..

Ooh, I like where this is headed!

Kaj estis inundo de la fiaj Idistoj.. Do la anĝelo Zam diris al la homo Eĉei: konstruu..Lernu!..

Sounds as though some of you might like the satire El la verda biblio by Izrael Lejzerowicz. He was a talented organiser in the early movement, and a member of the Lingva Komitato (which would become the Akademio) in his 20s. Sadly he and his family were captured in Poland by the invading Nazis and killed in Treblinka.

Here are the opening words of his book:
1.En la komenco la Senkorpa Mistero kreis Volapukon. 2. Kaj Volapuk estis senforma kaj kaosa, kaj mallumo estis en ĝi. 3. Kaj la Senkorpa Mistero diris: Estu lumo; kaj fariĝis Esperanto...

It should be said that later on the book becomes increasingly hard to comprehend because of the references to people and events in early Esperanto, although some are fairly obvious, like Bofrunt, Andreo Apud, Junio Pagi, and Kalsurmano Galoŝej.

If you can ask the question what do you..... and it makes sense you will know that it is a transitive verb,and I think this works most of the time if not all of the time.
What do you chase? makes sense so it's transitive
What do you eat? transitive
What do you want? transitive
What do you die? doesn't make sense so it's intransitive.
What do you run? doesn't really make sense but kind of does intransitive
What do you happen? - doesn't make sense so it's intransitive.
What do you be? meh not really .- Intransitive

and so on