I've picked out a new hill on which to die

[conuly]

People at /r/englishlearning need to stop saying "Song lyrics/poems don't have to be grammatical! Don't try to learn English through songs/poems! People just do whatever, ungrammatically, to fit the rhythm/mood/rhyme scheme!"

This may be true, I guess, but funnily enough it's never true when people say it. At least half the time, the quoted text isn't even archaic or nonstandard!

That said, I do like reading (most of the) comments in that subreddit. There's always something! omg this is kinda nsfw but when I was a teenager me and my friends saw "do the needful" in a book, and being from ohio we had 0 context for this phrase so we thought it meant "have sex with beggars"

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Two long-lost organ pieces by JS Bach performed for first time in 300 years (My goodness, we're finding so many lost compositions lately!)

Chasing the Louvre loot: Inside Antwerp's jewellery underworld

He Died at a School for Disabled People. Decades Later, His Brother Sought Answers. (There's a lot of sad stories in the comments)

The Hidden Devastation of Hurricanes: Their health effects extend far beyond official death tolls.

New flu virus mutation could see 'worst season in a decade'

Early this year, bird flu ripped through 80 farms in Ohio and Indiana. Using genetic markers, wind simulations, satellite imagery, property records and more, we found that the virus could’ve been airborne.

The Runaway Monkeys Upending the Animal-Rights Movement

Menstruation as misconduct: How prisons punish people for having their periods

Comments

[ioplokon]

Meanwhile, I could probably make a full playlist of songs I use to cue specific grammar or vocabulary in French! (eg: Pas Toi for the subjunctive)

I think it's more like, just be aware of what you are learning! The biggest risk is probably picking up some vocabulary that is rude/familiar without realizing it...

[magid]

Your potential playlist jogged my memory; my French teacher taught us a sentence for us to remember the way to say ‘to have something done’: Louis XIV a fait construire Versailles. It’s been over four decades since that class, and it’s still stuck in my head.

[ioplokon]

That's a great one - because obviously Louis did not build it with his own 2 hands.

[conuly]

Or, yes, picking up nonstandard constructions without realizing that they *are* nonstandard. I do advise ELLs not to mimic nonstandard usage - either they'll sound ignorant or, possibly worse, they'll sound like they're mocking people who use that speech normally. You don't have to social context, so just stick to sounding a little formal.

[moon_custafer]

Also, if you pick up vocabulary from poems/song lyrics, you’ll probably learn the word for “knife” way earlier than “spoon” or “fork.”

[siliconshaman]

English is what you get when Viking traders chat up Anglo-saxon barmaids and their grandkids get invaded by Normans who are part Danish part Gallic.

Or to put it another way; English is what happens when a bunch of Romano-celts who speak Latin with Celtic syntax, get invaded by their cousins across the water who speak Latin with Teutonic grammar, who then get invaded/colonized by Norse speaking Vikings resulting in a bastard hybrid and later on conquered by a bunch of people speaking Latin mixed with Germanic vocab and grammar... and the resulting language then a few centuries later does a world tour picking up vocab from just about everywhere!

[conuly]

English is a Germanic language. The various Creole hypotheses are not as robustly supported as their boosters claim.

[redbird]

A Germanic language, but with a lot of vocabulary borrowed from French and Latin.

[conuly]

Yes… although it’s important to note that much of that borrowed vocabulary is legal or scientific.

[cellio]

I was mystified by "do the needful" when I first encountered it, which was in a professional context as an adult so at least I didn't have that problem. :-)

[conuly]

Would've been an interesting question with HR if you had.

[grav_ity]

Also, songs are great for many of the more unusual verb tenses (yes, we did a lot of Shakira in my grade 11 Spanish class).

[minoanmiss]

I wonder if that comment about lyrics vs grammar is another case of "people who are good at breaking the rules of art first learned the rules in order to break them deliberately and carefully, not sloppily"?