Bright Ideas

I Can Speeking Engish Good?

Let me preface this by saying that this is not a value judgment on non-English speakers writing blogs.  Many non-native English speakers blog in English and many are very popular.  Many have great looking blogs and a good readership.  They definitely have their place and I am the last person who would want to censor them.

That being said, however, I feel a rant coming on.  And it goes a little like this…

Requiring blogs and posts to be written in fluent, conversational English means that I should not be able to tell in a few sentences that English is not your first language.  If you cannot capitalize correctly, punctuate correctly, spell or make your subject and verb agree then, no matter what country you are from, 

YOU DO NOT WRITE IN FLUENT ENGLISH

If you use the any of the following phrases in your communication:

Before 9 days… (when you mean 9 days ago)

Do the Needful…

Can you explain me…

More power…

huhuuhuhuhuuu…

YOU DO NOT WRITE IN FLUENT ENGLISH

If these are the arguments that you mount in your defense:

“The contents of the blog are presented at the left to retrieve the data’s faster.It also contains some picture for effective understanding.My blog is good and contain then fact that can be understood easily if seen and read by anyone.”

“Actually I was check it manually and use some software like Word and Grammar checker and didn’t find the error. Hope you can considered it again.”

“but today according to the blog assessment you not approved my blog for their market place.i work hard for build my blog and i improve my blog day by day.i appreciate if you can let me why you not approved my blog now.”

“why dosent my blog be approved when it are on english, if you want blog on english then you must approve it or else people wont blog here more”

“You keep on rejecting my blog saying “your posts were not written clearly and full of grammar mistakes”!! I don’t think my posts contain grammar mistakes!! It was written clearly with proper grammar!! I don’t want any lame reasons like this for rejecting my blog!!Please do accept my blog!! Hope you can do so!!”

“I’m sorry befor, I have email that my blog unable to approve because have error grammar, actually before submit my blog I was check it with word office software and didn’t find the error.”

“I’ve double checked it but found no error of this kind. I supposed that they are using grammar-checking programs to check the post instead of doing it by themselves. As there are many proper nouns in the post, automatic program may fail to recognize these words.”

“Mastery in english means we have to use high tech words.
As for my knowledge is concerned i don’t have grammar mistakes in posts.And the sentence formation in my posts are not so bad…
Please do see to that
i am trying to get approval
but all i get back is simply rejection
I m working too much in improving it”


YOU DO NOT WRITE IN FLUENT ENGLISH


I understand that times are tough all over and everyone is scrambling to earn money where they can.  I understand that working in a Global economy like the interwebs, you are going to communicate with many whose first language is not English.  And I appreciate that all of these people speak FAR better English than I speak French or German or Farsi or Hindi or Tagalog or Malay. 

However, I DO speak fluent, conversational English and it astounds me the lengths others will go to to “prove” that they do as well, when all their “proof” does is further prove that they do not.

So, to all you bloggers out there, please understand that fluency either is or it is not.  You either write in fluent English or you do not.  There is no gray area and there is no arguing your way out of it. 

</rant> End Rant ☺

Brought to You by the Letter 'A'

The word of the day, boys and girls, is apathy.

I just can’t bring myself to care much about anything.  Specifically, what I am going to be doing on New Year’s Eve.  I don’t want to go downtown or to any large tourist area as I expect the crowds will be rather large and I may stab someone in the throat with a fork.

My best friend is pregnant, so no drinks by her pool.

My house is not conducive to parties (re: small w/ no flow) and no one I know is havng a party.

I think I might just stay home.  Is that pathetic?

Depth of Vision

It occurred to me this evening how truly small the Internet makes this vast universe.  I’ve been reading it over and over, but it just finally sunk in that the massive appeal of Social Media is that it allows us to connect with others be they friends, family, co-workers, strangers of like minds or arch nemeses.

I think that it was the connection part that just wasn’t, well, connecting.  And this led to the bigger revelation, that the Internet, far from what the detractors say, isn’t keeping people from being part of the world, it’s really giving them the world on a silver laptop.

Several things hppened recently that has caused this revelation.  The first was that I finally succumbed to Facebook and connected (although more often reconnected) with nearly 100 people from my past and present within about 3 weeks.

Then I began following more people on Twitter, including several co-workers and got some surprising and unexpected insights into the people I see everyday, but obviously don’t completely see.

And jut this evening, I logged into BlogCatalog and saw yet another message from someone thanking me for visiting their blog.

I get a lot of these and I could never figure out why, because I never read blogs.  I never have the time.  And then I realized that I am a complete idiot.

I read blogs all day every day.  In fact, some days I do nothing but read blogs.  At work.  For work.   I get a few hundred Google Alerts each day and maybe 50 Tweet Beeps in addition to whatever links look interesting or informative from my Twiiter followers on both my personal and work Twitter accounts.

And since I am on BlogCatalog, when I read a blog that has a BlogCatalog widget while working, my personal information and personal blog are accessible to the blog owner and subsequent visitors. I am everywhere and I didnt even realize.

I thought I was hermetically sealed and here it turns out I am easily connectible to any one of the 1.6 billion people online on this planet and so are you.

I don’t know if I’m wary or relieved.

A Laugh for Friday

BrightGirl Says:  I found this in my inbox today and thought it was pretty funny.  Enjoy!

We were dressed and ready to go out for the New Years Eve Party. We turned  on a night light, turned the answering machine on, covered our  pet  Parakeet and put the cat in the backyard.

We phoned the local cab company and  requested a taxi. The taxi arrived and we opened  the front door to leave the house. The cat we put  out in the yard, scoots back into the house. We didn’t want  the cat shut in the house because she always tries  to eat the bird.

My wife goes out to the taxi, while I went inside to get the  cat. The cat runs upstairs, with me in hot  pursuit. Waiting in the cab, my wife doesn’t want  the driver to know that the house will be empty for the night. So, she explains to the taxi driver that I will  be out soon, “He’s just going upstairs to say  good-bye to my mother.”

A few minutes later, I get into the cab. “Sorry I took so long,”  I said, as we drove away. “That stupid bitch was  hiding under the bed. Had to poke her with a coat  hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take  off, so I grabbed her by the neck. Then, I had to wrap her  in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But  it worked! I hauled her fat ass downstairs and  threw her out into the back yard!”

The cab driver hit a parked  car…