By Ela Newman
Instructor in Developmental Writing and in ESL
University of Texas at Brownsville
newjgea@aol.com

Advice about Compliments …  the Surprise of the Hour

“Well, at least they have a healthy pile of magazines I can shuffle through,” I consoled myself after hearing that it would be a bit longer before the doctor could see me.  Passing over the monthlies dealing with sports, cars, and teenage-hood, I settled on a magazine concerning lifestyles–and that’s where I found the surprise of the hour… an article entitled 10 Things Your Mother Never Taught You, which included a section on how to take a compliment.

“Really?” I thought, questioning the piece’s relevance to the average American audience.  To my at-least-somewhat-assimilated mind (which has lived in the US for about ten years now), most Americans seem to accept compliments almost automatically.

Responses to Compliments…  Spitting

As I began to read the section, I recalled having to adjust my reactions to compliments when I relocated to the US.  In Poland, where I was raised, people almost invariably downgrade or even reject compliments.  Reading on, I found mention of someone’s relatives who, in the face of a compliment, spat three times in order to avoid bad luck.

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Silly and Illogical – but still Commonly Used – Bits and Pieces

By Richard Firsten
Retired ESOL Teacher, Teacher-Trainer, Columnist

 In Part 2 we took a look at some things in English which, although considered ungrammatical by conservative language users, have nevertheless become commonly used features nowadays. At least they aren’t silly or illogical in a common-sense way of looking at things.

Now, however, let’s take a little time to check out some elements of English that really are silly or illogical if you step back and think about them objectively, even though they, too, have become standard features in the language. Here are examples of things that educated speakers say and write.

• They say they’ll try and get here before sunset.
  I know you try and save some money every month for your kid’s college fund.

Try and is a very commonly used phrase that goes way, way back to who knows how long ago. But if you dissect it, you can see on different levels why it’s really very silly and illogical. In the two examples I’ve cited, they’ll try and get here and you try and save money, my question is, try WHAT? If it’s “getting here,” shouldn’t the speaker just say they’ll try to get here or they’ll try getting here? And in the other case, shouldn’t the speaker just say he or she knows that the other person tries to save or tries saving some money every month? In these versions I’ve suggested, we clearly see what those people will try: “to get here” and “to save some money.” But that try and get here and try and save money really throw me for a loop. It seems that they’re trying to accomplish two things, with the first of those things simply not mentioned.. For me it just doesn’t work, it’s illogical, it’s silly – but for many, many native speakers, it’s fine. Go figure.

To add to this silliness, can you use this phrase try and with he, she,or it?

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By Betty Azar
Author, Azar Grammar Series
betty@azargrammar.com

I recently received an email from a teacher concerned that exposing students to incorrect language usage in error correction exercises will lead to fossilization of the incorrect usage.  Below  is my response to him, which I thought might be of interest to others as well.

“Fossilization” means that usage errors have become embedded (i.e., habitual) in L2 learners’ language production.  It occurs when learners get no corrective feedback.  In some cases, L2 learners with fossilized language patterns are able to communicate successfully enough for their immediate purposes and thus have no immediate motivation to change.   Other times, L2s have no resources available to help them improve their English usage.

L2 learners who come to our classes, however, do not want to emerge with fossilized language.  That’s why they are in our classes, trusting us to move them forward during their interlanguage period as they reach toward a higher level of communicative competence.

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