I wish to no the electric

Those types of posts often come from registered users but i see you're point. I do agree, everyone should read that faq entry.

Yes most definit the electric him is a bad master you must lern to subjugate him in all his ways. This ways is so innumerate it am frustrating lik you say to be the general case with no particular place to go..dammit I've dropped into Chuck Berry...just when I was on a roll too.

Hey del, I want to kno who to pla that song too. lol

um actually, he shall not be coerced into any berries. He shall not subjugate to anything except by choice, and choice alone. ching ching.

... and occasionally more than a trace.

Rule number 1. Don't sweat the little things.

Rule number 2. They are all little things.

lol...

.....

anyway JRaef, as you can see I've now joined. that sould remove at least some of the guess posts.

What really bothers me is, I can understand the question. I just don't ever know the answer.

Funny how such a seemingly nonsense question draws so many views, 45 at this point.

Sir, could you please answer homework questions 42(b) and 44(a)(b)(c). Jeff

Yes you can put the swimming pools in the ground, "or the ground in them". Skip (b); it a trick question.

John

The third bullet point is to much for me.

I'm also interested in the intimate details, but could you explain the first part of your question?

I'm mostly annoyed with the full block answers: no line breaks, no space, nothing to make the content a bit digestible. It must be cultural difference.

This site is really world wide and that is how it should be and stay.

Your wish is our command. Wish = ??????

I am not so sure about the intimate detail, CR4 is not about the birds and the bees. Or is it?

lol

thats rather a good saying you have there!

If you want to too, then you to must to too too. lol thats a crack up

Technical vagueness is one thing, but I really detest the frequent smug comments from native english speakers who are quick to mock the attempts of non-native english speakers to get their questions across.

I believe the book "I Sing the Body Electric" should be a good reference for you, go read it...

Those kind of post are rather annoying too. The ones with a link attached are good though.

I'm with Gwen on this one, this is an international forum and we need to keep it that way, so a dose of tolerance is necessary.

I'm also in awe of the Belgians who all seem to speak at least three languages fluently, and up to five typically. It boggles my Anglocentric mind.

I also agree that due to language barriers... we must be tolerant. In addition, I strongly agree that registration be required to post. A "Guest" replying to a "Guest" sometimes gets a little crazy.

NOTE: It is a little scary sometimes when someone asks to "explain voltage" because they are installing a plant's electrical system.

I fully agree: sometimes people ask questions on special techniques, especcially electric, and you can read through the lines that they are trying to cut the financial corners by doing it themself, instead of hiring/engaging a skilled electrician.

It makes me shake through all my bones

I lived in Germany for 14 years, mostly courtesy of the US Army. The joke there was:

"Someone who speaks three languages is trilingual, someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, and someone who only speaks one language is American."

Now to try in German -- anyone is welcome to critique!

"Jemand der drei Sprach spricht is dreisprachig. Jemand der zwei Sprach spricht is zweisprachig. Jemand der nur eine Sprache spricht ist Amerikaner."

Note that I did not say "eine Amerikaner" which is a type of shortbread cookie.

lol,

I think it's good to be able to laugh at youself eine Amerikaner.

...or as a previous US President (JFK) once said in Berlin, "Ich bin ein Berliner".

A more usual German translation of that is " I am a Doughnut" (not a Doughnut ring, a solid one with jam in the middle, widely sold over here!!!).......we understood what he meant though.....nice of him to try!!

..."and someone who only speaks one language is American," or a Brit or a Frenchman!!!

The French are very obtuse with regard to language. I was once involved in helping a Brit who was involved in a car accident in France with talking to the Lady owner of the car he had accidently damaged.

It turned out she was a translator for French to English to French!!! I asked her why she would not talk to the Brit directly in English, said that the accident was not her fault (true), it was in her country and she saw no reason to talk English!!!!

I was one talking to a local in Paris who had a very strong Parisienne accent (Montmatre!), he wanted that I learnt HIS accent, or he would not talk to me!!!

I have never met this type of attitude anywhere in the world other than France!!!!

They even have laws to try and prevent Franglais!!!!

I speak Texan, myself, which is a bit different than US American. Remember, too, there are lots of Americans, North, Central and South, with many different language stocks, mostly Spanish, Portuguese, and French (other than Americanglish) . Our greatest fault is the over use of acronyms and very sloppy enunciation. And to top if off, your young people are found of not paying attention in school, especially when it comes to composition.

lol,

I would have use the word fond, but you Texans found a new one. of course, both work.

Don't worry about him. While they think they're driving all the immigrants farther South, there's a whole bunch of Americans on the Texas border sawing away with hacksaws, and getting ready to shove the whole state into the Gulf of Mexico.

Exactly people forget this is an international forum

We have all been guilty of poor spelling ,grammar etc.as well as a trip to the soap box

I am puzzled by the level of intolerance and arrogance .

I've asked a lot of questions (some dumb or obvious) in the quest for knowledge isn't that the essence of science?

Haven't we all ?

And isn't that how many great discoveries have been born ?

I've not seen much intolerance/arrogance on CR4.

Most of the native English (be it UK or US English) speakers are tolerant and even <gasp> helpful to non-native speakers (those few who don't speak/write it better than us natives!).

The less tolerant/more jokey "corrections" are to native speakers or those whose English is so good we don't know they're not native speakers (I'm thinking a certain Marx inspired contributor here). Even I've been picked up on typos!

All I can say is: if you spot some of this intolerance/arrogance, then challenge it.

PS I've bumped Gwen & Kris!

Hey, I don't get the complete meaning of what you try to say.

Sorry, I'm an non native and male.

But you are right on the difference between jokes and arrogance. What is called a joke here can be extremely rude for another culture and Vice versa.

But picking up someone's contribution on typo's is extremely rude, we are engineers, this is not a linguistic site.

excuse me.

I was having fun, and meant nothing demeaning. Also, I'm not a native speaker of english, and I have phrase myself badly at times, but I also see the funny side of it.

Sadly, in a way, English has become the universal language. In this respect, I do feel that the USA is to "Blame" for that, if "Blame" is the right word.....as even with the British Raj, before the 2nd WW, it was only after that the problem became what it is today....

Also, many English speakers appear to be too lazy to fully and correctly learn a foreign language or two, why?

But its a Fait accompli with English today.....(hope my spelling is correct!)

Non English speakers should try to construct short simple but accurate sentences on CR4, to make it easier for all concerned.

They tend to run into trouble with long sentences and lack of paragraphs.....and then come the smug comments you mentioned.....sadly....

You spelt "fait accompli" correctly, but omitted the apostrophe from "it's", which, as I'm sure you know, is a contraction of "it is" in the context in which you used it. "Its" is the impersonal form of his/hers:

he/she/it => his/hers/its

Is that condescending and picky enough??!! LOL

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grocer%27s_apostrophe#Greengrocers.27_apostrophes

English is an easy language to learn and a difficult one to master, I am told.

French, on the other hand....

Spelt or spelled?

Very tasty is spelt...I'm told it makes good bread, but as it still has some gluten in, I'll not get to find out!

Spelt is chiefly a British convention for spell in the past tense" "I remember the day Reginald 'spelt' for the first time. And only at 32! I think that's a record for the UK!"

Spelt is also a very early form of wheat.

May I, a Colonist on the left side of the pond, chime in? Thank you English Rose, honestly. I am an IRC Network Administrator for a long standing organization to provide mainstream access and services to the disabled, the elderly, and their friends and family. Many of our clients are blind, deaf or both, one claims to be 94, one is known to be 9. We have many teens who are neither blind or deaf, handicapped only by being young, who are simply tired of being verbally assaulted on the Internet. One of our problems is that the Internet is universal and many of our clients are neither USAian, English, Canadian, Australian, South African, or Indian. Thus we get many half learned English in our channels. We can accept them all with tolerance and understanding so long as they respect our rules and do not abuse our clients with sexual comments, hacking attempts, denial of service, or takeovers. The network is, it seems, the only network which has all of its staff visible and ready to serve, including the seven founder netadmin.

Now, with that said, where is use, or misuse, of the English language is apparent is with teh use of no longer necessary acronyms. There was a time when storage space on a computer was so limited that the abbreviation of any word whenever possible was a must. This is no longer true. However, some of us are, to some extent, typists. I, for one, am known to have finger dyslexia and thank God each session for spell check. The one fault here is to spell correctly the wrong word!

It is not only the use of the language that worries us. We can use teh language to help us determine the age and education level of each new client. One of the major problems we have is convincing the world of the necessity of all Internet development needs to be to the W3C Accessibility standards. This is especially true for commercial (and governmental) web sites. When one considers that the blind, deaf, blind-deaf, stroke victims, elderly, and other wise disabled (such as Stephen Hawking) are over 50% of earth's population, then one would realize by excluding then with purely written web pages, one is cutting off 50% of his sales and income. In order for us as engineers to reach all our clients and users of our products, we must consider that our Stories be to the W3C Accessibility standards. Otherwise, we fail our duty as engineers.

A side note, one of the CR4 guru's does fit in the 'disabled' category and I have found his work most important and am using it in collaboration with him in my work, also pointed to on this forum. I am hoping to continue as his friend, too. For all of us, tolerance is one of our most important tools. We, as Engineers, must work together to make this earth a better place. As we move outward to colonize space, our cooperation is even more of a must.

Thank you English Rose, by any name you are just sweet.

Perhaps a better way to say it is "its" is the possessive pronoun for "it." As in "Its tail is to long for this zeppelin."

It may not help with sentence structure or grammar, but spell check is available to EVERYONE who posts or responds here. It's also educational and informative, as it provides word definitions.

I suggest that anyone struggling with english (some whose first language is english) could try putting their thoughts down in point form. It might be easier to decipher.

frequent smug comments

Agreed. We should all be more tolerant of those who do not have the King's English as their first language.

I have no problems with that as long as they do not get all het up when someone asks them to try and make it more understandable or to use the spelling checker....

I sometimes feel that some errors are made (not just by non English speakers!), so that they can jump down the throats of those trying to help for some reason. Its an illness I believe.....or best said, thats the only answer I have available.....

Thank God Moose deletes a lot of the nasty stuff completely......and quickly.....thanks Moose.

The King's English?! PPPPPLLLLLEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSSEEEEEEE!!!

It is sad that some people do not know, but it is sadder yet that those who do not know also do not ask the questions. One look at the language gives a clue to the age and education level of the questioner. Why not help the poor kid and tell him where to find his answer(s). Any good supervisor is a good teacher! Remember, when you are a supervisor, you hold your head above the water on the backs of those under you. If one below you fails, you sink a bit lower. WHy not begin to rise higher by teaching teh people below you how to be more buoyant and them to teach those below them to become buoyant, too?

e tautoko ana au ki to korero rangatira.

that is the advice of a great outlook, and I support it fully. The only thing is, I started learning electrics last month, so I can't really offer great support yet, except where I can.

Maori?

What lollipop factory did you work for?!

Any good supervisor lulls his subordinates into a false sense of security by continually pitching the "One big happy family." line. Then, when it time to lay people off, you gut and cut without a thought to the trustful look in their eyes.

Do this well, and you don't need the people under you. If you're part of the sociopathic management club, they'll reach dawn and keep you afloat - no matter how many little floaters are sacrificed below you!

Hell, son! It's the American way! Ye-haw!!!

Also, what about those little floaters below you that turn out to be "baby sharks" that are just looking for a way to take you out... "You die, we all move up!!!"

God bless the American Way!!! Can't imagine why the rest of the world is co contrary when we try to teach 'em.

One look at the language gives a clue to the age and education level of the questioner. Why not help the poor kid and tell him where to find his answer(s).

Whilst I agree with the general intent of your posts, I'm not so sure about the above. Somebody who is older and highly skilled can appear exactly the opposite because of language difficulty. In general I'd try to respect a poster irrespective of age or level of knowledge, but with some exception : This is not a homework answer site - If somebody appears not to have bothered using a search engine or looked in a book, giving them a ready-made answer will not help them. Some questions posted are so short of the detail required for an answer that they are beyond redemption. I'm not going to embarrass any individual poster (Guest or otherwise) by giving reference, but a quick look around CR4 will reveal many such posts.

The fact that some posts may be lacking in grammar or spelling is irrelevant. I'd challenge anybody here to say 'My use of English is without fault'. The only thing that matters is can the reader understand, and does the question have merit. The onus of responsibility is on the person posting a question to explain as well as able what they mean, and provide relevant detail. Whether members choose to ignore a question or respond to it as genuine/piss-take is a matter of choice. How ambiguous questions are answered may often depend on the readers mood, so replies to posts should be afforded the same latitude as questions when trying to discern intent.

I've long since given up caring who posted the original question or why, but did they browse the extensive number of posts within the Electrical section ? I doubt it. Did they look to the rest of the internet for introductory text on electricity ? It doesn't appear so. Did they seek help from somebody who speaks their native tongue ? I don't think so. Would I help such a post as 'I wish to no the electric'. No.

That's just my general rant on the topic chtank, not at you, since I applaud your general interest and activity in promoting communication for those who experience difficulty. People do get hurt through communication problems, and that's a terrible thing. Unfortunately it's also an inescapable fact of life. Civil wars are often the most bitter, if you see my point. Anyway, as said, I applaud your intentions.

OK OK OK, I humbly apologize for the grammatical dig at non-English speakers, that part of my "joke" was inappropriate. Everyone is right, it is an international forum and I should have respected that. Heaven help me if I were to have to post in French, even though I studied it for 4 years.

Mea culpa, mea culpa.

In reality though, my main points were what I said in the comment, not in the way I said it. Registration and reading the FAQs on rules. Having people post vague and/or broad questions that are things to be found in basic textbooks is annoying.

Side note: I did study French for 4 years, and Spanish for 3, and American Sign Language for 2, plus my mother is Italian and we spoke it at home growing up. But the problem with BEING and American as far as languages go, is that American English has become the international language of business. So wherever I go (and I have been to a lot of places in the world), people almost always speak English. If I try to speak their language I am openly mocked, corrected, or told to just stick to English. So in spite of having studied foreign languages, I never get much chance to use them, so I lose them. I have friends who were born in foreign countries on the other hand who are tri-lingual or more, but they tend to either use the other languages more often and are acceptably fluent, or they use English as well. So the generalization of Americans being linguistically ignorant is somewhat unfair. We just happen to have been born in the dominant linguistic society!

Apology accepted your a good man to accept when you've made a mistake .

I agree people sometimes come up with some odd requests .

I admit myself at 5 am I have said a few inappropriate things mostly in anger and posted a few less than cohesive diatribes .

Thanks for setting a president of decency

lol

admitting you're american huh? lol

its still a good joke looking at it from this side of the fence. surely, you can see the funny side of it?

anyway, there are advantages to registering.

1, you get an updated discussion tab, that helps you keep track of your conversations. and the updating of the discussions is easily managed with the "read all discussion" option

2, you get the option of adding tracking tabs to any discussions you begin, which also helps organise this group.

3, You have the added ability to edit your discussion.

4, you can assign email notification an preferences... etc

so its a good idea to register.

French is not so difficult! I spook it myself.

And mea culpa is Latin.

I assume that you spook French in your previous incarnation.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Like it or not, this is an English speaking forum. We don't pretend that it is anything else. If someone is using translation software that doesn't work very well, then they should seek out a colleague that has a better grasp of the language.

Also, I have seen several posts of the nature "teach me everything about a complex subject." Again, either this is a terrible mistake by a translation program or it really is a mentally challenged individual. In any language, "teach me physics" has got to be an impossible task for a forum like CR 4 Daily.

I've been guilty of being exasperated over vague questions or half-learned English. At the risk of being branded as an arrogant person, I think that if you have to learn English, then you should learn to speak or write it properly.

Of course, not everyone has access to good English teachers and the "rules" of English is riddled with "exceptions to the rules" which compound the problem.

I learned my English, firstly, from my parents, who saw that English was going to be very important in our future. They spoke to us in English right from when we were still in diapers.

Then I learned it from my classmates and friends, some of them Americans. My teachers were excellent English speakers too.

Finally, my English improved with constant reading of books (not comic books ). I would read aloud which really helps with pronounciation.

I may promise not to make fun of someone's English but I'd still want to have them learn to speak and write it properly. If only to improve understanding him/her.

who are you speaking to?

I think that he was talking generally to everyone, no one in particular.....

Everyone.

Did I offend you? Sorry, wasn't my intention. Just saying what was on my mind.

No you didn't offend me.

But I do think people aren't too bothered by other opinions of their spelling or phrasing over the need to get their message across. I'm not at least in times when I don't check my spelling or proof read my posts, there's no point to such. But sure, people may take offence, especially if they're feeling sensitive.

I find good clean humour is good medicine, and taking offence doesn't even feature with such an attitude. And even humour can be subjective, and what I think is funny, like eine Amerikana, Americans may take offence where none was intended. but in this instance, the joke was introduced by an American.

Anyway Vulcan, just expressing my view also, and it's where I stand on this issue.

I was not offended Vulcan, I was just under the impression that you were putting into words, what a lot of us think anyway and addressing all of us in the process....

You are at least 99% right in my view!!

Have a good one!

Did you mean to write: "To whom are you speaking?"

You were born with clever far thinking parents AND you applied yourself to the job. Well done to you all.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To the rest of the people who have English as a subsequent language:-

We all on CR4 realise that it can be difficult posting for someone who's first language is not English, but the point is that if you want something from CR4, then you have to do your best to help us understand you, or that help might be wrong, inaccurate or missing something important.......you do not want that, neither do we.....

None of us will criticise a bit of bad grammar (hopefully we will be able to understand you anyway), but spelling mistakes are unforgivable as there is a quite reasonable (American) spelling correcter on CR4. You only have to try and use it.....!

Its the Green Tick, with ABC next to the Yellow Smiley on the top edge of the input box.....That would help us a lot.

My ABC checker seems to be Anglo-American, it does not moan when you uses colour or color.

"I've been guilty of being exasperated over vague questions or half-learned English. At the risk of being branded as an arrogant person, I think that if you have to learn English, then you should learn to speak or write it properly."

You have correctly pointed your finger at the vast majority of America's youth, which, sadly, includes many college and university students!

Don't knock comic books, some of my best "ten-dollar words" came from them!

Fer sure, dude!

Like, I see a lot of guys and chicks at school and stuff who like can't reaaly express themselves to good, ya know?

& now that thr all txting each othr, its gttng worse!

hehehe, try: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

OK, here is an example of a truly inane posting...

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/10962/induction-motor

Hoinest, I did NOT make that up!

I feel a bit awkward when reading something that is possibly intended as an insult with little disguise, like in the replies to that particular post. It puts me off contributing and makes me think twice before asking anything myself, for fear of ridicule. It's understandable that some readers may feel annoyed or angered, then for them, as for every reader, there is always the option of not responding. At least, when using a synthetic username, one's own identity is preserved from embarrassment.

I believe that CR4 is there to share knowledge and that allowances may have to be made towards the language capabilities of individual contributors. We must remember that 94% of the world's population lives outside the USA, and 99% outside Britain, yet the English language, prevalent in those areas, has become a lingua franca (that's Latin) for international communication. We should not be surprised/shocked/annoyed/irritated when an individual, trying hard and possibly quite nervous, comes up with something not quite as polished as the more practised contributor; we should make allowances.

Of course, and please stop "moaning!"

Crabtree,

If English isn't your first language, you do a darn good job of making it seem so. I can't imagine anyone dissing you about your posts.

Also, some of the really bad posts, like the one about "Drainage," I imagine are the result of non-English speakers using translation software. These programs can "sometimes" do a decent job, but when you get into detailed ideas written using regional concepts and idioms, these programs croak badly!

Oh, and just so you know, English isn't the language of the world, American is!

I think the replies were fair enough in this case - the request was rude, abrupt and easily solvable by the poster: he has internet access, he can type "induction motor", so why the ^%$£ doesn't he type it into Google/Kelly/GlobalSpec and find out a) how one's made and who sells them!

If he'd asked "I need to know more about induction motors and am not sure where the best sources of info are, can anyone point me in the right direction, please. I need it for....", then he would have got some sensible answers.

Personally, I just ignore those sorts of posts.

You are living up to your Spenser tag line on your signature, English Rose!

For me, it would have to be: Oh, help thou my weak wit, and sharpen, my dull tongue!

You get what you see!

Is it not the case in all cultures that if you want someone to do something for you, then you ask politely, you don't demand it?

There are enough translation sites on the internet that getting a sentence in polite format (even if not totally gramatically correct) is possible. A "I'm sorry my English is not good" rider goes a long way to get people on your side (I use the equivalent whenever I write in German, French or Italian)

Purrrrrrrrr

You might not know, but in different languages and cultures the way they build up questions and remarks are completely different than the good old English/Western methods. Sometimes it is by adding a simple word and in Chinese it is by changing the pronunciation (don't ask me how they write that down, perhaps other characters that mean the same word), it makes it horrible for them to learn English or any roman/German language.

Try to read beyond the rudeness and what is questioned and look to the sentence structures. Quite fascinating.

This is how I improve my knowledge of some other languages: look to how they build up an English sentence, I know mine are build up as Dutch.

"Look! What's that in the road... A head?"

Gaw Blimey guv'...I thought this pencil (lead...thread) had long since died...!

Can I re-join the party...?

Just wanted to say I done good in English at school.

Del (wot is from 'Arlow innit?)