zambothegreat

I think context is everything. If someone is pompous, it's going to come through in the writing whether they use a word like alas or not. I've always preferred simpler language, but if a writer is skilled enough to use elaborate language and make it read well, it's all good to me.

BWL's link didn't open for me either. Here's a video where a small lesson in Ubykh is taught in French:

It's hard to make out what he says, but starting at 1:50, he talks about a few words that start with the letter q, which would make a "kha" sound, or something similar to that. "Courire" is jogging, "la tombe" is the grave, and "la parole" is speech. I can't make out the rest of what he says.

I can distinguish between Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese), Japanese, Thai, Filipino, and Korean. I can recognize Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and a few others. I've watched a lot of martial arts films, and I'm generally interested in Asian culture, so that's how I can distinguish between a few Asian languages.

So the Chinese equivalent is "It sounds like Heavenly Script to me"? What is Heavenly Script?

This is what the Writing Guide of the UtahState University says about the Oxford comma,

Full guide sections are found here, http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/WritingGuide/CGGS/311c.htm

Good post. I tend to just use the Oxford comma, even when it's not a serial list. I wonder what kind of department or publisher would request that the Oxford comma not be used?

I can't think of any specifically, but I tend to have some trouble with the spelling of words that might have a pair of double letters. Something like "commission", or something like that.

Are you talking about general cases? The best way to write is to write with what you know. A person who isn't really familiar with English, will probably use embellishment in their sentences, but without really knowing it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, as long they're making an effort to learn and to improve. If somebody is purposefully writing pompously, then yeah, that's obviously annoying.

I could not cite a specific language, but I'm sure that usually any other language that our mother tongue seems to have more complex grammar rules.

But obviously, there must me some other more complex that English, I suppose that Greek and Russian should be among those with the more difficult rules to learn.

I think Greek has less nuances and "rules" than English does. At least it seems that way to me. I think it's the same case for French, but French has a lot of weird things with verbs which are confusing to me.

It's definitely important. I used to work as a game tester, and great English grammar was a prerequisite, even though the company was based in Montreal. When you're working for an international company, great English grammar is usually a must.

I didn't think I had much of an accent when I was younger, but it turns out I sound like an idiot guido. I heard my recorded voice, and I remember feeling like crap knowing that I sounded like that. I've since been trying to sound more... intelligent

"That's the way the cookie crumbles" was one of the first ones I can remember. Needless to stay, I had no idea what that meant when I first heard it.

When I was wee lad, 6 or 7, I used to say something like "sumanagun" or "sumanab****" instead of "son of a gun/b****". I knew it was an insult, but I didn't know what it meant.

Even though English is my native tongue, I still learned quite a bit from comic books. I wasn't into books when I was a kid, because "books are for nerds", so a lot of the reading I did came from comic books, newspaper cartoons, and other things of that nature. It was mostly Marvel comics, Spiderman and X-Men.

In Greek, you'd say "red car". So we already have 3 languages where the noun follows the adjective. I don't think it's that exclusive. I know in French, it's the other way around.

In general, I'd say Russian. It sounds pretty badass. But, it really depends on who's speaking. For instance, I think Phil Anselmo has a great voice. It's a southern drawl. Also, Neil Fallon, who's from Maryland, Virginia.

“Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.” - Robert. A. Heinlein

Besides the traditional errors that you'll see on the internet (your/you're, should of/should have, etc.), most new slang annoys me. When a person uses "swag" for any reason, I'll half-jokingly wish them out of existence. Here's one I found out about recently: using the word "though" at the end of a sentence for whatever f***ing reason. Example: "I'm so hungry, though". And it's usually spelled "tho". WTF is that? So, yeah. New slang.

It'll happen, but not regularly. More often than not, when I forget an English word, it's just because I tend to blank out when trying to come up with a word mid-sentence, even if it's simple.

I'm fairly trilingual. I can speak and understand French and Greek pretty well, but I'm not fluent in either language.

I can't think of one word specifically, but "rural" is one word that I tend to screw up if it's in a sentence. Kind of the same deal with "rire" in French, which means laugh. Something about those 2 Rs.

There's a Greek expression which means "I'm going give you a beating/whooping", but in a playful way. In Greek it's "Ah se thoso xilo" (hard x sound). Translated into English, it's "I'm going to give you wood". Yup.

'Bacne' is the only word I approve of from that list. Using 'meme' as a verb is cheesy, but meh. Everything else is ridiculous.

The ones I have the most difficulty with are the "sh" ones like "She sells seashells...". Here's tough one:

I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.

Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.

I don't believe that English is plain or necessarily flawed. If a wordsmith is speaking it, it sounds beautiful; if Tom Two Teeth speaks it, it won't sound good. Because English borrows so much from other languages, it's extremely deep. I don't remember the stats, but apparently a fairly small percentage of English words are spoken by most people.

As far as sexiness or a language sounding alluring, I would choose Russian. Hearing a girl speak Russian really appeals to me. As far as coolness goes, Latin, Ancient Greek, and Japanese being spoken in a deep, abrasive voice is badass.