Re: OT: contractions

Quoting Stone Gordonssen <stonegordonssen@...>:

> > > You probably has point here. According to the OECD statistics I've
> seen,
> > > Americans after twelve years of schooling have among the worst
> commands
> >of the
> > > written form of their mother language among developed countries.
> >
> >Except that the ban on forms like "they're, usually" is part of the
> >spoken language (the formal written language doesn't allow
> contractions
>
> True, but I interpreted his lament of people assuming he's American to
> be
> general, not limited specifically to the one example "They're,
> usually".
The point is surely that bad spelling on many Americans' part make it less
likely for a non-native's mistakes less likely to be recognized as such, not
that people think "he can't spell - ergo, he's American".

If the particular construction "They're, usually" is a no-no in all varieties
of English, then it should obviously be a clear give-away to the observant
reader, but the 'Net appears to be stuffed with non-observant people who're
only too happy to take me for American.

                                                             Andreas