college students who feel they obtained suckered

[SamBones]

While researching something (i.e. Googling), I came across this post. It's obviously written by someone who's not primarily an English speaker, but I can't stop reading it. It's like not being able to turn away and avert your eyes when you pass an accident on the highway. A couple of the sentences make my brain trip and skin its knee.

Enjoy!

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.uvwiki.org/vector-marketing-and-advertising-and-cutco-is-it-a-rip-off-2.html[/url]

 

[guitarzan]

Wow, just looking at

http://www.uvwiki.org,

this person is prolific!

Painful as it is to read, I have to give the writer a bit of a pass, as the domain is registered to someone in Indonesia, and the email matches the contact email on the blog, so it seems clearly a case of someone learning English, but not having enough background / practice to fully put sentences together properly. As someone who is slowly trying to learn another language (without the benefit of hearing others speak the language constantly), I can put myself in this person's shoes... its not easy!

But yes, SamBones... it's painful

 

[CajunCenturion]

Yes, that is painful. However, I'm not sure it was actually written in English. I think it was written in another language and then electronically translated into English.

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[guitarzan]

CC: I was thinking that also, but it actually seems better than I would expect from some automatic translator. You could be right though.

 

[SamBones]

Yes, the reason I posted this here is because the vocabulary is quite impressive (correctly using the word "culpable"), but then completely missing on grammar and sentence structure elsewhere.

Additionally they have you come into unpaid meetings as soon as per week.

I also had the feeling this may have been through an automatic translator (possibly multiple times).

 

[kwbMitel]

Culpable, Nonetheless, qualifications, additionally, Moreover, and others do not seem to be likely outcomes from a translator to me. There are simpler terms that I think a translator would provide. Keep in mind I only possess 1 language myself so I am quite biased

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[Stella740pl]

Not 100% sure, but in my experience an automatic translator usually produces much worth results - although I suspect the outcome could be different depending on the language of the original text. To be more precise, I think it depends on how closely related the source and the target languages.

It is also possible that the author is not a native English speaker. Those come in a two main categories, the beginners whose grammar tend to copy the grammar of their native language (some of them sometimes correctly spell mistakenly chosen words of similar pronunciation), and the educated ones, whose grammar and spelling tend to be overly correct, often more correct than grammar and spelling of some native speakers (not without an occasional slip-up, of course).

kwbMitel, here is an opinion of a non-native English speaker (who has been living in USA for a while). I often hear from people speaking only one language of those mysterious “simpler terms” and “easier words”. The question is, easier and simpler for whom? I would not consider a word simple just because it is short. Say, “qualifications” – a mainly international word that has analogues in many languages. What would be a “simple” alternative? I am not so sure. Or, say, “culpable”. There are more frequently used synonyms, but how do you know which one to pick from a dictionary if you are translating a text to a language you are not exposed to? (By the way, auto-translators do almost the same thing, they grab the first word in the dictionary; they don’t know if it is a correct meaning of the word or a “simpler” term. It just was first on the list.)

And don’t even get me started on all those “short and simple” terms created from the words with literally hundreds of meanings with addition of adverbs and prepositions. It’s absolutely impossible to remember all those put ons, put offs, put outs, etc. for years and years. Now, “pretend”, “postpone”, “procrastinate”, and “extinguish” are good, memorable words.

 

[Stella740pl]

I re-read it. In my first line, I meant to say, "much worse results".

 

[djj55]

Stella740pl, Your translator must have failed.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[SamBones]

Oh, that's funny!

And where's the Edit button on these posts?

 

[Stella740pl]

djj55, :-D I am pretty sure this is not a kind of mistake a translator would make. The funny thing is, this is the kind of mistake that I tend to always spot in other people's writing - and the one I mentioned, a correct spelling of a wrong word. Oh well. I spotted plenty of those in texts written by English speakers. So there ;-).

 

[SantaMufasa]

college students who feel they obtained suckered

If we consider the original intent of the submitter, they probably meant:

college student who feel they got suckered

I can see that an electronic translator, when given the option of "got" versus "obtained", it is going to probably (and incorrectly for this case) choose "obtained" as a more "refined" word than "got".

How many times, as children in school, did we hear teachers say:

There's no such thing as the word 'got'.

Usually, such a false statement was in a thoughtless response to a person saying something like:

Have we got any homework tonight?

...or...

How many words has our essay got to be?

Both of these examples use admittedly poor construction in the first place, but they are not proof that "There's no such thing as the word 'got'."

Got is simply the past tense for the infinitive to get...If you get sick today, then tomorrow you can properly say, "I got sick yesterday."

To get suckered is a very widely used piece of slang that English speakers understand. Automated translators, however, (unless programmed otherwise specifically) would probably opt for "...obtained suckered".

Had the original foreign-speaking poster been aware of this nuance, then they could have avoided our derision by choosing a foreign phraseology that originally meant "college students who feel they had been suckered." But if they were literate enough to understand this nuance, then they probably wouldn't have needed an on-line translator, right? <grin>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel."

 

[Annihilannic]

The talk of "got" and "get" reminds me of this usage that irritates me:

Customer: "Can I get a Big Mac?"

Spotty faced teenager: "No, sir. But you can have a Big Mac if you give me some money, then I will get it for you!"

Annihilannic
[small]tgmlify - code syntax highlighting for your tek-tips posts[/small]

 

[djj55]

Reminds me when as a child I would say at school "Can I do ...", the teacher would say "Yes you can, no you may not.".

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[SantaMufasa]

Reminds me when as a child I would say at school "Can I do ...", the teacher would say "Yes you can, no you may not.".

...And hopefully the teacher would follow up with a quality explanation of the difference, else your experience becomes yet another school-day exercise in frustration, right?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[djj55]

The explanation was provided a few times at the start of the year but after a while you knew she was telling you two things: NO and your grammar is bad. Mine grammar is still bad.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!