@ Bowens
By the way, sorry if my posts have been tenebrific with regard to the original nature of this discussion - I allowed myself to fall into the terrible trap of ingravescent pleniloquence.
@ Bowens
By the way, sorry if my posts have been tenebrific with regard to the original nature of this discussion - I allowed myself to fall into the terrible trap of ingravescent pleniloquence.
Your an idiot Clownfish; I'm sorry for being so blunt and forward, but I am too exhausted from applying my mental energies elsewhere. Again, please leave the thread if your criticism does not address its substance.
Oh, and Schofio, you are forgiven; but I'm still working on forgiving you for using those dictionary killing A-bomb words... =P
I think I may have a had a better chance understanding you if you had said it in latin, no joke! =)
No one's trying to one-up Mr Bowens by correcting his grammar, that would be too challenging a task. It was just a reminder that if people can make mistakes in their own language, what more people for whom that language is not their native language.
Translation of any language is at best only the closest approximation of the original text. Something is always lost, as the title of this thread says. More so if a language has subtle nuances peculiar only to itself. I don't think ESL bloggers run their text through babelfish or other translation programmes. Perhaps only for some words. But the grammer and syntax are all their own. My feeling is they post as well as they can in accordance with their individual grasp of the English language. A brave act indeed, considering the reception it can get.
Asking this site to provide translation may not be practical, in my view. Who would be on hand to do the job all the time, especially as blogs are coming in thick and fast and membership is growing all the time? Then, what if the translation is not satisfactory? Worse, what if it distorts the original meaning - a common problem with translation, even among professional translators.
Perhaps we should just let things be. If a blog in English by an ESL blogger is too arcane, ask for clarification. If that gets too esoteric as well, what to do but walk on by as it cannot be helped. Perhaps the lack of response would be an incentive to the blogger to improve his command of the language.
As to English being compromised by the adoption of slang terms, the language itself has grown by incorporating foreign words. Adopting slang terms like "one-up" or "twit" will only further enrich an already wonderful language, in my opinion .
Re: Clownfish
I really don't appreciate your total dismissal of my OP; you obviouly don't understand what I was or have been saying. First, the joke cited is not understandable, second, I am not asking that people write in perfect english, third, the issue I am addressing is the prevalence of people running block text through web translation sites such as babelfish.
If you don't know what you're responding to, don't respond at all, and quit pissing me off. I'm sorry, but after clarifying over 10 times what it is that I'm talking about, my patience is running thin...