[dozzie]

> It seems very unlikely that either a human typing this, or a computerized system would make these mistakes (if it learns word associations from a corpus).

You underestimate people's ability to make language errors, including spelling ones. Every time I see somebody I suspect is a native English speaher using "it's" for "its", I grind my teeth. (Another instance is somebody using phrase like "as a programmer, the data bus should be written..." to mean "I, as a programmer, think that..."; this phrasing makes me simply furious.) With those errors they make reading my second language so much harder, and I can't even point their bad spelling or writing style out, because I'm seen as being nitpicking or something.

[bshimmin]

and I can't even point their bad spelling or writing style out

There is a certain delicious irony that you managed to contrive such a perfect example of a dangling preposition in the very next sentence after your complaint about a dangling modifier.

Skitt's Law in effect once again!

[dozzie]

I believe you overlooked the "out" word at the end of the sentence ("[...] I can't even point [it] out"). Or am I mistaken and you meant something else? How should I have written the sentence?

Remember that English is not my native language, and having an already established carreer, I don't have many opportunities to learn the grammar more. I'm bound to make errors and not even know about them, because there's nobody who would point them out.

[bshimmin]

It should be "I can't even point out their bad spelling or writing style". When the preposition gets separated from its object, it's referred to as "dangling". There's a famous (probably apocryphal) example where Winston Churchill humorously wrote, "This is a situation up with which I will not put." - the humour being, of course, that the arguably more grammatical phrasing sounds absurdly unidiomatic.

If you cc me on all your work correspondence, I'll be happy to point out any grammatical errors I find (for a fee, obviously).

[dozzie]

OK, Wikipedia has a nice article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding

Though my sentence was grammatically and semantically correct, but the sentence I was complaining about was semantically invalid, so it was a little too much from you to point that out (stranding here fully intended).

> If you cc me on all your work correspondence, I'll be happy to point out any grammatical errors I find (for a fee, obviously).

A "nice" offer, but I'll pass. First, I'm not in a position to copy my work correspondence to a random dude from the internets. Second, my work correspondence is mainly in my native language.

[bshimmin]

Your sentence was unidiomatic to this native English speaker - "point" and "out" always belong together in a construct like that.

My offer was a joke, but never mind.

[dozzie]

> Your sentence was unidiomatic to this native English speaker

[emphasis mine]

Fair enough, but I obviously picked up this manner somewhere, and from what I remember, it was long before internet got crowded by people from all over the world, so I think it was from some other native English speakers.

> My offer was a joke, but never mind.

Your joke went over my head so high that I recoiled from the superiority vibe I got from reading it as an actual offer. (I just wanted you to know that, now that it's clear what it was.)

[andai]

Not with that attitude!