For Yu and Doorkeeper.

Dear Doorkeeper and Yu,

I'm just a member of the forum like any of you. I'm not one of the big

Poohbahs. (Doorkeeper calls them Bamboos, it seems. ;-) ) My reading andwriting here is done in my spare time. It's the same with Canuck, withPanpanpan, with Jenny. But they all have formal positions here. I don'thave any formal position here at all. Just like you. I reply as I please, and

sometimes when I know Canuck, my brother, is very busy, I try to help more than

usual.

I like the way Canuck has listed your errors and corrections at the foot of

his posts to you, Yu. So I learned something new. I think the way I've beendoing it by using brackets inside the repasted post with my corrections, orby posting the original post and a fully corrected post to compare with are

not as good ways. Of my two ways, though, I prefer the latter.

It takes awhile to get to know each other. I've known Doorkeeper for some

years now, I believe. Also many others who are still here, and those who havecome and gone, and some who have returned again. Now I'm happy to meet you, Yu.

Grammar is really quite important, unless you want to learn to speak well strictly by ear, as a child learns from its parents. When you learn byear you will pick up errors from the person from whom you are learning, as well

as much that is correct. Often I've seen that people who are very well educated

and speak their own language excellently come here and get jobs where they learn a lot of grammatically poor English. Then when they talk they sound as thoughthey are poorly educated. Ugly slang and poor grammar picked up on the job does

them a disservice.

You can't believe *everything* a native English speaker writes here. Take me, for example. Recently I've been caught out twice in misspellings. I appreciated

their being pointed out to me by one of the friends here. Another thing I've noticed about myself lately is that I'm becoming unsure about when I should double a letter. So I may be making mistakes with those kinds of words.

None of you should be ashamed of your English. If anybody ever makes you feelashamed or makes mean fun of you, then I hope you realize that they are brazen,

unkind and uncouth. They have no "class." In my use of the word, lacking "class" means that they are coarse and crass. It has nothing to do with education, wealth, or possessions. That is my personal "take" on class. Other people in this country of Canada, in the United States, and among the British, and no doubt

other varieties of English speakers have various meanings when they speak of "class." I think you need to know a little more about each person who usew the word in order to understand what they mean. If you want to know what somebody means by such a loaded term you might ask them what "class" means to them. It could

become interesting.

Well my dear Yu, and my dear Doorkeeper, it's late again, and I'm going to

stop writing on the forum very soon now.

Best wishes to you both, Mary