English, and placing commas correctly.

Another very bad troll.. If she's offering help, you can calmly tell her that she maybe shouldn't..instead of doing that you call her an embarassment, I think you are the embarrassing one here..I'm sick of trolls like you.
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Another very bad troll.. If she's offering help, you can calmly tell her that she maybe shouldn't..instead of doing that you call her an embarassment, I think you are the embarrassing one here..I'm sick of trolls like you.
Posted from TSR Mobile

I had already explained that her advice was utterly incorrect on the first page of the thread. I'm sure she doesn't need this pitiful display of whiteknighting from you - she's a big girl, she's doing A-levels and everything.

I had already explained that her advice was utterly incorrect on the first page of the thread. I'm sure she doesn't need this pitiful display of whiteknighting from you - she's a big girl, she's doing A-levels and everything.

How is it incorrect though?? Tell me that, at least I don't want an argument, it probably is wrong, I speak 5 languages, I'm obviously going to get confused. Btw I do A level English Lit

Fair enough, but stop trolling

Which languages and what levels do you speak them to? It's always interesting to hear about language combos. I vaguely recall you mentioning you lived in the Netherlands (either now or previously) and you or your parents came from somewhere else with a Muslim population but I have no idea whether that was Africa, the Middle East or Asia so no guesses from me as to language there.

I'll be honest, I'm struggling to see how you could possibly have thought you were correct - but I'll try to explain anyway. From my 'corrected' version (I wouldn't have any commas in it personally but I was going for minimal intervention and I'm sure many people would consider it just fine with the comma):

Many individuals today feel the need to be prejudiced, and make assumptions way before they get to know a person in depth.

Many individuals today is a noun phrase and the subject of the sentence.

Putting a comma after today is the equivalent of writing *I, like cats or *The teacher, has marked our homework or *The new car, smells like chemicals. I would assume you can see that these make no sense. (The asterisk simply indicates that it is grammatically incorrect.)

feel the need [+to ...] is the first verb. [to] be prejudiced and [to] make assumptions way before they get to know a person in depth are the two follow on verb phrases from that first verb.

The second verb phrase is long but it is quite obvious that it cannot be broken up with a comma if the sentence is to make sense, since one cannot say 'be prejudiced way before they get to know a person in depth'. The part in italics does not belong to that verb phrase. Prejudice is not something that is unusual specifically before getting to know someone or more usual after getting to know someone.

A simpler sentence with the same structure would be: I like to ride my bike and buy ice cream on my way home.

I cannot put a comma in this, just as I cannot put a comma in after assumptions, like this: *I like to ride my bike and buy ice cream, on my way home.

For one thing, even if on my way home, an adverbial phrase, belonged to both verb phrases (ride my bike and buy ice cream), separating it from them would break up the clause and make no sense. If I remember correctly the reason for this is that there must be a verb in every clause, but there may be exceptions to that - I'm not going by conscious rules here so I may be wrong with that attempt to formulate it into one.

For another, how on earth do you ride your bike 'on the way home'? You ride your bike 'home', not 'on the way' home - you are on the way home because you have been riding your bike, or you are on your way home and riding your bike as the method of transport, you're not choosing to ride your bike as a break/distraction while already making your way home. Clearly, it is buying the ice cream that is the new activity that you choose to take part in while already being on your way home.

Incidentally if you switch ride my bike out with something that can be done on the way home and you want on my way home to belong to both verb phrases, the punctuation stays the same. The only reason we know that it does not belong to ride my bike is context - we know that you cannot ride your bike on your way home (unless you're talking about driving home with your bike in/on the car, stopping and going for a ride and then getting back in the car and completing the journey, for example, but we would obviously assume this is not the case with so little information).


The only person getting close to trolling here is you. Don't make me report you for spamming.

Oooooh you know everything about me!! Psychic lol
I speak dutch, Flemish, Urdu, Punjabi, and English(not anymore I guess) fluently and can understand German/French Yea my parents are Asian

I don't know, but even at GCSE my teacher noted that I was good at English, but kept making 'odd' mistakes, I didn't ask her what they were I was too lazy Now, I'm doing A level English lit, and surprisingly my teacher didn't pick up the 'odd' mistakes that my GCSE English teacher did

Thanks for letting me know, I'll try not to make them mistakes again, but tbh I don't think I can help it, I don't think I'll ever know English the way someone who was born here would...

Ignore Jilal, he's my over-protective brother and he's high again

I'm not sure it's an A-level English Literature teacher's job to be correcting basic English spelling and grammar, though. It's about writing maturely and analysing texts. I would assume they focus on that and hope that spelling and grammar issues get ironed out as time goes on (or as you read more widely).

I wouldn't be so pessimistic - language skills (especially spelling and grammar) are picked up via exposure. That's why so many native English speakers are so horrifically bad - they don't or barely read, and they pick errors up from people they have on Facebook or from language they see around them (put there by other people who've never read a book in their life). If you want your English to be like that in classic novels or newspapers or academic writing, expose yourself to it and emulate it.