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Comment by godmodus | Hacker News Reader

Ironically, I've have an English bachelors degree,and I've never seen it in writing before, till now! Language is active learning. There's no real way to avoiding these pitfalls, besides reading and engaging with others. I'm OK with it aslong as those offering corrections do it kindly.

I've learned German, too. German is 'difficult', not because of its grammar, but because how mistakes are handled. Which is often with harsh commentary, ridicule or confusion. Not sure why that is the case, but English speakers are often kinder when offering corrections!

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> Ironically, I've have an English bachelors degree

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a clever and subtle joke.

As a defense I'll say this: I'm arab, grew up mostly on online and speak and write four languages. Their grammars do intertwine, and I can't help it much. my colloquialisms and vernacular are not on paar with that of a native speaker's - my academic work had a higher quality of writing due to proof reading and tight work with a thesaurus.

And it's been a while since I was a student. Cut me some slack :p

And I know I should've written 'i have' instead of 'i've' - in Arabic we say 'ill efforts blacken the face'

To disprove your last point: I'm curious as to how you achieved such a degree while using "till" as shorthand for "until". Are you sure your Bachelor's wasn't in agriculture? ;)

Joking aside, I think it's a consequence of English being a very complicated language with all sorts of borrowing from different language families. There's almost no such thing as "correct" English, and attempts to reason about it in a prescriptive rather than descriptive manner will almost certainly fail. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate, but mistakes happen either way, and I reckon the average English speaker to be a bit more cognizant of that, recognizing that nobody - oneself included - really has a perfect understanding of the English language.

"Till", in fact, predates "until". http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6989/what-is-the-.... See, for example, the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer (1662): "Till death us do part".

My advice as a native English speaker here: In my entire life, I've only seen or heard "till" in the following contexts, given in order of frequency:

1 A cash register (noun)

2 In very poorly constructed resumes

3 In the farming sense (verb)

4 In internet forums alongside poorly written English

5 Shakespeare and other literature from several centuries ago.

So my advice: unless you're a time traveller, use "until".

Oh god I remember reading so much about till and until. covers face in shame

I think I even forgot the difference between conjuncts and adjuncts, too. Grammar 1/2/3 were tough courses.

I'm leagues below the level of a native speaker, I'll admit that! But I did still do a ton of reading, which did improve my English, but won't protect against common pitfalls :P it could've been worse. At least I don't make those "your" "you're" mistakes, too often :D

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