Scribe, ut possis cum voles dicere: dices cum velle debebis (Pl. Ep. 6.29)

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

With All That's Going Down

I often think that my English is pretty good. Compared to many Russians and Israelis i know it really is. But the more i think about it, the more i understand how far it is from being perfect. Ever so often i find myself tied up in syntax with my head spinning. Many people wouldn't even care about problems that bother me. I suppose it's a virtue by itself. I don't even dare to claim that i understand the differences between British and American usage properly - in dictionaries i certainly prefer Merriam-Webster which is American, but my writing doesn't necessarily stick to it.

Oh, my writing. In this blog i allow myself to be postmodern, silly and irresponsible. And with my perfectionism i can correct the entries years after posting. But on my workplace? On my previous job the email was written in Hebrew, but this company requires that all communications be English. Apparently writing professional work related email, which wouldn't be too heavyhanded and would still include occasional smalltalk is a skill i haven't acquired yet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahalan,

I am a datlash here to correct a subtle grammatical issue in your writing.

"in dictionaries i certainly prefer Merriam-Webster which is American"

There needs to be a comma before "which."

Your English is quite good though overall.

Amir said...

Thanks for your comment.

May i ask how did you come upon this? Did you search Google for "datlash"? I just did that and i am surprised that this blog is the first result. Wow.

nhmmvg