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by ricardobeat
409 days ago
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That’s a very generous interpretation. I don’t know mandarin but these are likely a transfer of grammar constructs from the primary language to english, in the same way the Dutch will say “make a picture” or “the house of my parents”, which can be justly classified as awkward rather than as linguistic flair. If someone was editing my writing, it would feel a bit patronizing if they said grammar mistakes (many of which come from my mother tongue Portuguese) are “adding flair”, as they are not a stylistic choice. |
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As for it being patronising, why is telling a non-native speaker their sentence is interesting unacceptable, but telling them it's awkward is ok? (Assuming both are genuinely held opinions).
I'll reiterate my point that common English usage (non-awkward?) has narrowed enormously in the last 50 years. I think that this is a bad thing.