Thread: Who speaks which language?

Originally Posted by Hanna

I have never paid too much attention to your English but "piqued my curiosity" is rather elegant English, and it's something only an educated person would say. Might well be British rather than American. I know the expression but I wouldn't have used it. I would probably just said "I got curious" or something like that.

Hanna, allow me to disagree, a little bit! In my experience, a great many not-very-elegant speakers of English, on both sides of the Atlantic, are able to SPEAK the phrase "пикт май кьюриосити" (using Cyrillic transcription because I don't know the proper IPA characters!). But on both sides of the Atlantic, people who are less educated will use the written spelling "peaked my curiosity" or "peeked my curiosity" -- when, as you know, the correct spelling is "piqued." (If I'm not mistaken, the word originally meant something like "колоть иголкой")

Just to re-emphasize the point: the SPOKEN phrase will sometimes be heard even at lower levels of education, in both the US and the UK -- but in all dialects of English, it's relatively rare to find someone who knows the correct spelling -- even well-educated people often use the spelling "peaked."

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

Just to re-emphasize the point: the SPOKEN phrase will sometimes be heard even at lower levels of education, in both the US and the UK -- but in all dialects of English, it's relatively rare to find someone who knows the correct spelling -- even well-educated people often use the spelling "peaked."

Ok - perhaps that expression is more common than I thought - but I am not used to hearing it.
I agree with your view on the spelling/grammar of English speaking people.
I think about 15% are really good at it, and will write correctly at all times.
But in my working environment (in IT) I see so much bad grammar and spelling from native speakers with a university degree. It's pretty shocking.