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| JohnnyMalaria:
--- Quote from: mathsquid on May 17, 2021, 07:46:18 pm --- --- Quote from: tooki on May 17, 2021, 06:10:54 pm --- Indeed, the only native speakers who truly, thoroughly understand and can verbalize all* the rules of their own language are the ones who’ve worked for years teaching their language to nonnative speakers, since those students ask the deep “why?” --- End quote --- I'll share a related anecdote. I occasionally proofread stuff for a colleague whose first language isn't English. One time he had written that something happened "in November 12." I corrected it to "on November 12" and he asked why. I didn't have a good answer for him--I just knew which was right. His reasoning was that when we say a month, we use "in" (e.g. "in April") and when we use a day, we use "on" (e.g. "on the 10th" or "on Tuesday"). I had never considered any rule, but we worked out that "in" goes with months, and "on" goes with days, and that "november 12" is a day, and thus we use "in". --- End quote --- To most British-English speakers, "on November 12" looks and sounds odd. Even though I lived in the US nearly three decades, "I'll see you on June two" instead of "I'll see you on June the second" or "I'll see you on the second of June" still sounds very strange. Then, of course, there's the whole "2/6" vs "6/2" debacle... |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: gnuarm on May 17, 2021, 08:03:54 pm ---A day is a specific date and so "on" indicates that date exactly. Any longer period of time would use "in" since it only indicates the date generally within that time frame. --- End quote --- Except that just as a month contains a range of days, a day contains a range of times, and we use yet another preposition: on the 17th at 3pm. --- Quote from: gnuarm on May 17, 2021, 08:03:54 pm ---But I agree that native speakers often don't know why they speak the way they do. A fellow grad student was asking me the difference between special/specially and special/especially. The dictionary indicated they were the same. I told him I never hear anyone say "specially" or "especial" but that was just my familiarity. --- End quote --- English doesn’t have a word “especial”, but specially and especially mean subtly different things: Specially means “for a special purpose”, as in, “this plate was specially prepared since Cindy is allergic to peanuts”, meaning that it was prepared in a special way. Critically, the “specially” does not actually refer to it being for Cindy, though we clearly infer that from context. Especially means “in particular” and “mainly”, in addition to “for a special purpose”: e.g. “I especially like the pineapple gummy bears”, “this dish was made especially for Cindy” (it could be prepared totally normally, but it was made because Cindy really likes it.) Consider “this dish was specially prepared especially for Cindy” — it means we really like Cindy so we not only made it just for her, but we also made it in a special way. There’s big overlap between the two words, and in many situations both can work. If in doubt, use “especially”. |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 17, 2021, 08:26:07 pm --- --- Quote from: mathsquid on May 17, 2021, 07:46:18 pm --- --- Quote from: tooki on May 17, 2021, 06:10:54 pm --- Indeed, the only native speakers who truly, thoroughly understand and can verbalize all* the rules of their own language are the ones who’ve worked for years teaching their language to nonnative speakers, since those students ask the deep “why?” --- End quote --- I'll share a related anecdote. I occasionally proofread stuff for a colleague whose first language isn't English. One time he had written that something happened "in November 12." I corrected it to "on November 12" and he asked why. I didn't have a good answer for him--I just knew which was right. His reasoning was that when we say a month, we use "in" (e.g. "in April") and when we use a day, we use "on" (e.g. "on the 10th" or "on Tuesday"). I had never considered any rule, but we worked out that "in" goes with months, and "on" goes with days, and that "november 12" is a day, and thus we use "in". --- End quote --- To most British-English speakers, "on November 12" looks and sounds odd. Even though I lived in the US nearly three decades, "I'll see you on June two" instead of "I'll see you on June the second" or "I'll see you on the second of June" still sounds very strange. Then, of course, there's the whole "2/6" vs "6/2" debacle... --- End quote --- ”On November twelve” is wrong in American English, too. Even if written as “November 12” (as recommended by the major American style guides), it’s always read as “November twelfth”. Whether or not you write the ordinal marker (“…th”, “…rd”, etc), dates are always treated as ordinal numbers, not cardinal numbers. |
| TimFox:
The well-known American version of a traditional Catalan Christmas carol (not a translation) starts "On December five and twenty...". Poetic license triumphs over pedantry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fum,_Fum,_Fum |
| gnuarm:
--- Quote from: JohnnyMalaria on May 17, 2021, 08:26:07 pm ---To most British-English speakers, "on November 12" looks and sounds odd. Even though I lived in the US nearly three decades, "I'll see you on June two" instead of "I'll see you on June the second" or "I'll see you on the second of June" still sounds very strange. Then, of course, there's the whole "2/6" vs "6/2" debacle... --- End quote --- That's easy to fix, 2021/06/02, computer time from msd to lsd. I use computer time in file names so they sort chronologically and alphabetically at the same time. Or is that on the same time??? |
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