Grammatical mistakes

[Matthew E. Feeney]

Aside from the clear errors made in the native language there are provincialisms that are used. There are grammathcal variants in each different dialect, or ''narechie,'' and there are differences in phonology and place of stress in words in each different ''narechie,'' and it began to occur to me while being in the native speaking environment that the unusual variants that i was hearing in pronunciation might be coming from the dialects, especially in moscow, where people came from all over russia. ---------- Sent from AT&T Wireless using Windows Live Hotmail


-----Original Message-----
From: Melissa Smith
Sent: 10/17/2011 10:27:53 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Grammatical mistakes
You indeed repeat my pet peeves in English.  Having been brought up on
Tom Lehrer's satirical songs, I always think of the "Old Dope Peddler,
doing WELL by doing GOOD. ("with his powdered happiness"). When I
explained this distinction to a Russian exchange student, she began to
listen attentively to local Ohioans, however, not a one answered
anything but "good" in response to "How are you doing?"

Russian has a whole category of "???????????"" to cover errors in
grammar. And of course, jokes about Georgians and Chukchi thrive on the
absence of gender. "?????? "??????" -- ???? ?????, ? "?? ?? - ???
??????"

Since my teachers were either in Leningrad-St. Petersburg or Moscow, I
learned a bunch of rules that I hear infringed upon right and left
among Russian immigrants, which has led me to conclude that some things
construed as errors may be "provincialisms." The one I really can't get
over , however is "?? ??????" rather than "??????" Another friend fro
Kharkov will sometimes say "???," rather than "???????." And I myself
have trouble with the "??????/???????" distinction, which was hammered
into my head at one point.

I'm not totally comfortable with being a "descriptive" rather than a
"prescriptive" linguist, but I imagine the former have fewer headaches!

Melissa Smith

On 10/17/11 5:40 PM, William Derbyshire wrote:s"" Consequently
> In a message dated 10/17/2011 2:09:54 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,
> sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET writes:
>
> The  mistakes that grate on me the most here in Alaska are "I'm going
to
> lay
> down"
> I don't think that the average  college-educated speaker of English
could
> produce and
> use correctly the various forms of  "to lie"  and "to lay", and this
> pertains to Americans
> and British equally - not just youse / ya'll /  younse Alaskans!
>
>  "You did good".
> This might be  grammatically correct if the speaker means to say what
the
> sentence says.
> How about "I don't feel good" vs. "I don't feel well" (is the latter
an
> adjective or an
> adverb, if the latter, then you better learn how to do it well!)?
>
> Also English speakers have horrible problems with apostrophes. So
many
> people find it hard
> to grasp that "it's" means "it is", while "its" is possessive. But
seeing
> an apostrophe in a plural
> is the most depressing.
> Now you've really  hit upon my pet peeve. Take a drive on a Saturday
and
> count the number
> of signs which  state:   "free kitten's"
> At our local  farmers market It is quite normal to see signs in one
and the
> same  booth. such as:
>             "cucumbers  $ xxx"
>             "turnip's        $ xxx"
>             "We  also have tomato's and potatoes too."
> Sheeesh!!
> I was amazed when I noticed the same mistakes  being made by British
> speakers of English.
> But, far worse, I have found similar examples of the misspelling of
> plurals in my local newspaper.
> Finally, I have a friend whose child's teacher  "corrected" the proper
> spelling of the plural noun
> "books"  to "book's" in the child's composition. The teacher was
furious
> when the parent  pointed
> out the  mistake and subsequently became revengeful towards the child.
>
> And yes,  Virginia, I've heard many a Russian speak about "Mojo
> den'rozhdenie". and  use,
> inter alia, incorrect genitive plural endings ("sosedov"), not to
mention
> incorrect stress on
> numerous verb forms ("prinjAl"). When I was still actively teaching I
used
> to keep notes
> on mistakes which I heard educated Russians make. I regret that I did
not
> keep that list.
> It would have made a good article.
>
> *************************************************
> William W. Derbyshire
> Professor Emeritus - Rutgers  University
> freelance translator - Slavic  languages
>
>
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------------------------------------

Melissa T. Smith, Professor
Department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures
Youngstown State University
Youngstown, OH 44555
Tel: (330)941-3462

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