[Magdalen] Do's and Don'ts.

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

My partner, being a native Spanish speaker does well with English,  but
he does have some hang ups that make him seem less smart than he is.
I teeter between helping and hindering his irregular English verb  problem,
and have almost concluded any attempts at improvement of these hang  ups is
fruitless.
 
The most prominent of these English verb hang ups is the hard working
English verb, to do.  He doesn't get the third person singular  ending.
So it's "he/she/it don't".
 
On one occasion, when I tried a low-key correction of this he  surprised
me by asking what about the second person singular of this verb.
 
I had to explain that it is "Thou dost" but that form is archaic.   His
response was, "Well it isn't in Spanish".
 
Then there is the confusion between the verbs "to stand" and "to  stay".
 
He routinely says, "I stood there for three hours waiting for the  nurse
to call me".  Of course he means he "stayed there for three  hours...."
 
Old habits die hard.
 
He is, however, having fun correcting some of his friends who say,  "Seeing 
the
dead rat made me nauseous", meaning, technically, "Seeing the dead  rat
made me nauseating". when the correct word is:  "Seeing the  dead
rat made me nauseated."
 
 
 
David Strang.