07 December 2014

Not Quite Written In English?

If you are using English-language records, is it possible that the writer slipped in a non-English word or a word in a non-English script? A native German speaker may have written in English only to occasionally slip in a German word out of habit? Or did a native Swede write a last name in his native script? That confusing word may be confusing because it's not in English language or not in the English script.

2 comments:

  1. I am constantly looking at email addresses to determine meaning of words or sentence construction so that I can better understand what the writer is saying and I am sure they are doing the same thing reading our English. These days I have more problems with US "educated" writers than I do with those who have a very different first language.
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  2. I have seen this regarding European place names in particular.

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