The world runs on broken English ... I work at a large multinational company with employees from all over the world, and I constantly hear basic grammar mistakes like: "we has" "I has" "I doesn't ... and so on, with horrible pronunciation — like 'health check' becoming 'hols check,' or 'I think' turning into 'I sink.' And I could go on. And these people are highly educated — with degrees, even PhDs.
The other day I made a mistake too — I wrote "Don't spoiler it" and my friend corrected me: 'It's don't spoil it.' And yeah, he's right. But honestly? I'd still use "Don't spoiler it" because I feel like more people would understand what I mean that way.
And this isn’t just a few people — it’s the majority. And I doubt it’s unique to this company; it’s probably the same across most multinational companies and organizations.
That’s the thing with English — compared to languages like German or French, it’s shockingly easy to learn badly… and still get by.
But the truth is, I end up picking up their bad habits too. Just look at the example above.
I don’t know… I have mixed feelings. I don’t like it when people butcher a language — it annoys me and even hurts my ears. Sometimes it’s not even broken English, to be honest — It’s shattered English, but I highly doubt that most people care. I once asked a few people, and they said they don’t mind it — so I guess I have to accept it.
The lingua franca of the world is NOT English ... It's BROKEN English.
What a great post. You're absolutely right. If you go on YouTube, almost all the videos that aren't made by non-native English speakers are in broken English and judging from the comments, they understand each other perfectly.
title: The World was Built on Broken English
English has no governing body like French's Acadamie française, so there's no such thing as 'correct' and 'incorrect' English, just standard and non-standard. If you're understood, there's no problem. I also frequently say 'don't spoiler it' and no one has a problem.
Just to be clear, don't spoiler it means you haven't seen a show or movie and you don't want to hear what happens?
Yeah, the same as don't spoil it
@CocoPop - Yes