Why all English speakers worry about slipping up

jlmmelo 14 106
The English language is confusing, inconsistent and easy to muddle (confundir). But some pour too much scorn on those who break the rules, writes James Harbeck.
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PPAULO 6 49 1.3k
Yes, it´s easy to muddle things up in English! Ha ha ha.
http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/hanimals11.html

The balance is on the middle. For example, it´s impossible to learn English with no rules, no grammar, no system of organization. One can´t take to the extremes as well. I agree with those that somehow rebel against some things of old, but one has to see the work of pioneers and that many evolutionary ways are not that evolutionary. On the other hand, language is dynamic and the party must go on.

The featured item has cited that "you will not find an English speaker who does not at least occasionally fret about whether he or she is committing an error." I don´t see much of an insecurity there, and I bet he was one of those that laughed his way to his office when he heard of some Bushism!

In time: that wouldn´t make him a nitpicker, just a normal English speaker.
Marcio_Farias 1 24 214
At times, the fear of slipping up has made me spend hours roaming the Internet for the right words, lest I make grammar or spelling mistakes in my writing. Yet me, my big ideas and my carefully chosen words sometimes trip me up, no matter how hard I try to pick myself up off the floor of agrammatical uncertainties and all the syntactic traps my English will eventually suffer through.

Now, as I learn German, the same fear creeps into my judgmentally jaded eyes and poor monitoring of language. Fortunately enough, a German lady, from whom I learn the language, helps me deal with the intricacies and pitfalls that inconsequential and non-methodological language learning otherwise would have posed for me. German notwithstanding, AmE, the type of English I sought to learn, still fascinates me so much, I might think of living in the United States for a while, just so I learn more of it with (or from) our "irmãos americanos". If I ever succeed in doing so, I will and should get rid of the fear, my poorly conceived ideas and all the crutches my unnatural English leans on. Who knows? One day it will make the grade. Or fail miserably.
PPAULO 6 49 1.3k
Chill out and cheer up, Marcio. Everyone makes mistakes, even Mr. President Bush (that was born in the States himself) made lots of them, tripped up by language landmines!

Just see this one:
"I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened."

I think he meant authoritative.

On the other hand, it´s good that you strive for perfection.