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conulyAll the posts are in English. All the responses are in English. I am reasonably certain that most of us are native speakers, perhaps even monolingual.
So why is it that twice in the past week I've had to tell people that if your book is not in English, you need to tell us what language you read it in so we have a chance of finding it? (Special points to the person who said "I read it in my language" and then needed to be asked again what language that is.)
Several times a day people say things like "I read it at the age of 13 and I'm 47 now" like that means something, and occasionally when I tell them to just do the math and spit out a calendar year they go "I didn't think some arithmetic was such a big deal!" and - honestly, yeah, no, I don't actually have any confidence that people have better reading comprehension skills than they have writing skills, so please, help me help you.
If only I could find some way to explain this to people without insulting them. You'd think none of them would be smart enough to figure out that I am insulting them, but somehow, that always gets through.
So why is it that twice in the past week I've had to tell people that if your book is not in English, you need to tell us what language you read it in so we have a chance of finding it? (Special points to the person who said "I read it in my language" and then needed to be asked again what language that is.)
Several times a day people say things like "I read it at the age of 13 and I'm 47 now" like that means something, and occasionally when I tell them to just do the math and spit out a calendar year they go "I didn't think some arithmetic was such a big deal!" and - honestly, yeah, no, I don't actually have any confidence that people have better reading comprehension skills than they have writing skills, so please, help me help you.
If only I could find some way to explain this to people without insulting them. You'd think none of them would be smart enough to figure out that I am insulting them, but somehow, that always gets through.
