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by dismalaf 443 days ago
> Your understanding of how formality levels in English function is perhaps not entirely complete: native speakers of English convey usually convey

It's kind of hilarious that you assume I'm not a native English speaker because I speak more languages... I'm a native English speaker who just happens to have grown up with 2 other languages and have a wife that speaks 4+ languages. On top of that I've taken a bunch of university level English courses.

Yes, I'm aware that people shorten sentences into statements when speaking to those they're familiar with. I do it as well.

Here's a thought experiment:

- If a toddler speaks in short statements it's "baby talk"

- If an immigrant speaks in short statements it's "broken English"

- If a native speaker speaks in short statements it's vernacular or slang

Or:

- If a toddler makes up words it's "baby talk"

- If an immigrant makes up words they're uneducated

- If a native speaker makes up words it's a dialect

1 comments

Most of those incorrectly use the linguistic terminology (in particular, "dialect", "baby talk", "slang") but, yes, congratulations on discovering that context plays a role in communication.
Ah so you want to be snarky to try assert intellectual superiority but actually have nothing to say. Gotcha.