Wonderful article and a fantastic example of how there’s a big gap between being fluent in English and being fluent in English, especially the English that your counter-party is using.
Took me forever to get used to California English after I moved here from the slavic part of Europe. Still find a lot of it utterly boneheaded, but at least I know what’s going on and can cope … at great cost to personal sanity.
It will never not irk me when people say ”Please feel free to X” when they mean ”It is paramount that you do X”
Took me forever to get used to California English after I moved here from the slavic part of Europe. Still find a lot of it utterly boneheaded, but at least I know what’s going on and can cope … at great cost to personal sanity.
It will never not irk me when people say ”Please feel free to X” when they mean ”It is paramount that you do X”