Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Missing The

One fun thing about my job is that I get random proofreading assignments that were written by non-native English-speakers.  Yes, I am aware of how incredibly nerdy I am for describing "proofreading" as "fun."

I don't speak Danish, but I'm guessing that articles aren't used a lot, particularly definite articles.  If I'm proofing something written by a Dane (which is most of the time when it wasn't written by someone in my office), there are more dropped the's than ... I don't know where I was going with that comparison, but you get the idea -- the's get no love.

Also, Danish appears to have some syntax similarities to Spanish with overly complex (for English) sentences that have "of" in an awkward place.  Instead of saying "make sure the bolts are secure," they'll use something like "ensure the security of [the] bolts."  Not grammatically wrong, just awkward.

I don't get these sorts of assignments very often, but I enjoy the break from routine when they come.

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