[WAYYY OT] Begs the question

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 14:36 +0000, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> > 1) Does this look like an error?
> > 2) How do I do this?
> 
> Just a small comment wrt. error 1 --- I was actually surprised to find
> out that 
> in some languages the statement and the question have exactly the same
> form, 
> the only difference being the question mark vs. period at the end of
> the 
> sentence. In vocal communication, people would distinguish between the
> two by 
> using different voice pitch at the end of the sentence, marking it as
> a 
> statement or as a question. So the error 1 above may be "imported"
> into 
> English from outside, so to say.

I'm well aware of that. Spanish is a case in point:

1) Vamos a comer. -- Let's eat.
2) ¿Vamos a comer? -- Are we going to eat?

In fact I know from observation that some question forms can be hard for
non-native speakers to grasp when using English, such as the correct use
of the auxiliary verb 'do'. A common mistake for example is "Didn't he
went?" instead of "Didn't he go?"

However my comment was really aimed at people who ought to know better.
There are lots of non-native English speakers on this list who put some
of the natives to shame. I'd say you are one of them.

poc