On Mon, Dec 16, 2019 at 06:28:41PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > (I realize that this can be kind of frustrating for people who aren't > native English speakers, because those rules can provide the structure > that they rely on to express themselves in English.) In my experience, this mostly becomes frustrating in bullyish environments, where people are putting more effort in debating me and competing on who is more "right". There, an apparent language mistake means that people will be delighted to disregard everything I was trying to say, and instead point a finger and laungh at me having been WRONG. "You make a good point but your grammar is WRONG, and now I'll divert the conversation into patronisingly explaining it to you" is a great classic when speaking to people with a confrontational attitude and a fragile ego, who can't just say "I like your point" and build on it. I've seen it work also the other way round, where in bullyish environments people intentionally make "innocent" mistakes if they help "take the other person down a notch". In an environemnt where people are putting more effort in cooperating, and working together towards a common goal, even a language mistake that would render an entire point incomprehensible or absurd, would end up into not much more than "wait, I don't get it, you mean to say $THIS?" "uh, ah, lol, no, sorry, I meant $THAT", and work and life go on without even a significant break of the flow. Enrico -- GPG key: 4096R/634F4BD1E7AD5568 2009-05-08 Enrico Zini <enrico@enricozini.org>
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