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by throaway955 358 days ago
Close....You've typed this out in English after having achieved such AN unlockING.
1 comments

Online English can definitely use "unlock" as a noun like that, it comes from gaming culture.

An unlocking would be less idiomatic IMO.

yeesh, "online English." L337 h4xors with uber skillz?

"achieving unlock" is grammatically incorrect (im a native English speaker), if its idiomatic then of course that's different, but I wouldn't put that down as being "fluent," id put it down to be exposed to those specific idioms. It's not just about using the verb as a noun; where is the indefinite article?

If the gp was making a "I can has cheeseburgers?" style joke, then it went over my head, but it clearly is not grammatically correct English just because its used online.

Did you just lead off a linguistic purity rant with "yeesh"?
no, and "yeesh," is in the dictionary in any case.
Good illustration of the comment about true fluency being able to play with the language.

English takes this to pro level, of course.

It's incorrect English. If its idiomatic then its idiomatic. But its not a marker of fluency; its a marker of being exposed to a culture which uses those idioms.