Um ... you Americans do speak English ... do you mean everyone in the entire world? Even Sweden? :P

I'm not sure why you received so many snarky replies, as your question is a fair one. American English is very fluid & full of slang. The double negative is more slang and would usually be attributed to someone with less education. But we all use it at times. As to our lazy Internet spelling, I am guilty of that. Sometimes its laziness, sometimes its a rebellion against our convoluted spelling rules.

I think rude replies are worse then double negatives or stoopid spellings.

CM

Originally Posted by Alling

Well ... standard Danish and standard Swedish are not the same. I can understand written Danish, but spoken Danish is like "bluewblawbler" to me. Danes understand Swedish better than Swedish understand Danish, I can tell you for sure. In Sweden we use to pull jokes like "Danish is when you try to speak Swedish with porridge in your mouth."

LOL - The name of that classic Danish porridge ("rødgrød med fløde") sounds like the speaker has a big wad of it in their mouth when they're saying it. All of my attempts to learn some Danish have failed miserably. I enunciate too much to speak good dansk.

"snarky replies"
Oh dear, that wasn't a rude reply, you misinterpreted my response.
It was an obviously failed attempt at english humour......
Two nations still divided by the same language. We need another revolution.

Sadly written language is sometimes inadequate.
Communications are not just content, but contain tone, gestures and facial expression as well.
I wonder if there is a symbolic notation like choreography which could express the totality.......not a comms specialist so don't know.

Double negatives are just a very lazy way of speaking and generally frowned upon by purists.

If you took anything as snarky than you are being a bit sensitive. My reply was saying that if you are only watching movies about gangs and reading Internet forums than yes you would that America is full of mentally handicapped....but if you read a book or w newspaper you may get a different perspective.

Originally Posted by Hasty

Two nations still divided by the same language. We need another revolution.

Actually, the pronunciation used in North America today more closely resembles Elizabethan English than does Standard (British) English pronunciation. This is because the Great Vowel Shift resulted in dramatic changes in the way people in southern England speak.

But we Yanks continue to let our British cousins think theirs is the authentic "Queen's English"—just don't ask which Queen... {snark}

Originally Posted by Hasty

"snarky replies"
Oh dear, that wasn't a rude reply, you misinterpreted my response.
It was an obviously failed attempt at english humour......
Two nations still divided by the same language. We need another revolution.

Sadly written language is sometimes inadequate.
Communications are not just content, but contain tone, gestures and facial expression as well.
I wonder if there is a symbolic notation like choreography which could express the totality.......not a comms specialist so don't know.

Double negatives are just a very lazy way of speaking and generally frowned upon by purists.

I wasn't referring to your reply. I caught the humor.

And to make sure no one thinks I'm sad ... I'm not. I haven't been since I started the thread.

Once when my friends came home from Denmark after having been on a soccer camp, they talked about the Danes saying rødgrød med fløde and no one knew what it meant or anything. We just thought it sounded so damn funny and awful!


I still haven't got any answer on my question about putting punctuation marks inside quotation marks. Somebody?

This will answer your question...
Quotation Marks | Punctuation Rules

By the way, Alling, I have to say that your command of English is better than some Americans that I know. Please don't let the snarky comments keep you from posting. I've enjoyed your topic and since it's in the "Anything Goes" bucket you have every right to post your views.

Originally Posted by Alling

I still haven't got any answer on my question about putting punctuation marks inside quotation marks. Somebody?

Hey, silly, I answered you. Go back to my original response to you.

(Sheesh.)