Behind the Scenes
English lessons with Ma
My mom recently (finally) started using email. I set up a yahoo account for her and she doesn’t understand the concept of passwords, so neither my father or I can use our yahoomail accounts, as we must keep her ‘signed in’ at all times. The few times when I signed her out, she freaked. She has officially acclimated/regressed like the rest of us. Now she emails me every day ad infin asking me to edit her emails to her friends in China. This was today’s discourse:
I. Mom to me:
Jimmy, I was going to forward all my email to you after I send them,for correction.But I change my mind,instead I’ll forward them before I send out. ( I’ll let you correct them first and then sent out). see below
rwei shan, Gloria Chu mentioned that you are coming to Bay area this summer, please email me prior to your arrival.so I can arrange a lunch meting for 3 of us. see you!
lin zi
II. Me to mom:
Ma, ‘See you’ implies that it will happen for sure. ‘Hope to’ acknowledges its pending status. You want to convey that she has the option to say no. Thus, the latter is more polite and appropriate.
Here’s the corrected version:
Rwei Shan,
Gloria Chu mentioned that you are coming to Bay Area this summer. Please email me prior to your arrival so I can arrange a lunch meeting for the three of us. Hope to see you soon!
Lin Zi
III. Mom to me:
Jimmy,how about the part I wrote to you? and this one. please correct everyone. thank you.
IV. Me to mom:
Ma, you need a space after commas and periods – you know this. And capitalize the first letter of every sentence. ‘everyone’ is a group of people. ‘every one’ is every (single) one. ‘send’ and ‘change’ should be ‘sent’ and ‘changed’ because you are referring to past tense.
Corrected version(s):
Jimmy, how about the part I wrote to you? And this one. Please correct every one. Thank you.
Jimmy, I was going to forward all of my emails to you after I sent them for corrections, but I changed my mind; instead I’ll forward them before I send them out. (I’ll let you correct them first and then send out.) See below.
V. Mom to me:
thank you
VI. Me to mom:
Ma, corrected text:
Thank you.
I was being a jerk with the last one, that’s what she gets for throwing away my Queensryche “Operation: Mindcrime” cassette tape thinking it was satanist. (It’s about a nun — geez Ma!) For those of you who question the relevance of this post, let us refer to HTMLG’s tagline: the internet literature magazine blog of the future. This post discussed the internet (yahoo mail), literature (grammar and rhetoric), and the future (ad infin editing).
But seriously, the disparities of tongues on the english language leads to some brilliant (albeit inadvertent) poetry. If someone wrote these things aesthetically, it would be genius. Mama,i’m coming home.thank you
Tags: engrish, managing editor
this is my favorite post ever on this site
this is my favorite post ever on this site
this is a charming back and forth.
I’ve had this discussion before somewhere online long ago about writers of english where english is their second or third language. I think Daphne Buter was offered as an example of when it benefits a writer. Is it true poetry if the poet is unaware of why it’s poetry? I deal with emails at my job all the time from people who are not well english’d and sometimes their wording is so riddled with errors and the phrasings are all wrong it just comes off as kind of charming or sometimes really genius poetry. I’m not a real grammar nit though, even though my grammar tends to be decent by default, I have to make a conscious effort to not write grammar of good.
this is a charming back and forth.
I’ve had this discussion before somewhere online long ago about writers of english where english is their second or third language. I think Daphne Buter was offered as an example of when it benefits a writer. Is it true poetry if the poet is unaware of why it’s poetry? I deal with emails at my job all the time from people who are not well english’d and sometimes their wording is so riddled with errors and the phrasings are all wrong it just comes off as kind of charming or sometimes really genius poetry. I’m not a real grammar nit though, even though my grammar tends to be decent by default, I have to make a conscious effort to not write grammar of good.
the cutest….
the cutest….
awesome! my mom has an email account but makes my stepdad read it all to her and then she dictates her replies.
my dad once had a student from russia he was hoping to get in the sack and thought a good way to do so was by telling her she could email me her term papers for editing. that was a particularly painful set of emails.
awesome! my mom has an email account but makes my stepdad read it all to her and then she dictates her replies.
my dad once had a student from russia he was hoping to get in the sack and thought a good way to do so was by telling her she could email me her term papers for editing. that was a particularly painful set of emails.
Operation: Mindcrime returns to HTMLGiant.
Let’s see if it can appear in a few more posts before the week is out.
THE WEEK IS ALMOST OUT! GET ON IT!
Operation: Mindcrime returns to HTMLGiant.
Let’s see if it can appear in a few more posts before the week is out.
THE WEEK IS ALMOST OUT! GET ON IT!
pretty funny bro
pretty funny bro
Jimmy, I miss you.
Jimmy, I miss you.
thank you to everyone who commented.
thank you to everyone who commented.
this is great, jimmy
reminds me of my discourse with my dad
my mom, though, remains internet “unsavvy”
this is great, jimmy
reminds me of my discourse with my dad
my mom, though, remains internet “unsavvy”