User talk:Itsused/How’s my English?

Hello, everyone, and sorry if this is a bit bizarre. I think my English is overall OK, but I always feel that something is wrong. May it be a tiny grammatical mistake or a serious need of rewriting, I usually come up with various explanations for that, but none of them seems to help me to get out of this sticky situation. I would be glad to receive any suggestions you might have upon reading my contributions, especially grammatical fixes. Thanks. ~ Itsused^{(Talk·Contribs)} 19:07, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

A note left at WP:GOCE would be more useful than a single {{help me}} request, as more than one person would be able to provide feedback. Your English seems quite good to me! Primefac (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac: Thank you, but where should I leave a note? They don’t seem to accept requests of this kind. ~ Itsused^{(Talk·Contribs)} 07:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

OK, since you didn’t answer my question I left a message on their talk page. ~ Itsused^{(Talk·Contribs)} 12:41, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Your use of English above looks reasonable to me. If you have concerns about your use of English in an article that you have written or edited, you are welcome to tag the article or section with {{copy edit}} or {{copy edit section}}, and a copy editor will come along (it may take a while; our current backlog is about nine months) and work on it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Hello, Itsused, and welcome to Wikipedia. Your English is pretty good, but you are right that it isn't perfect. I have several suggestions:

1) First, don't worry too much about grammar or spelling when you leave comments on a talk page. Just do your best to be clear.

2) Second, if you make an edit to an article and it is reverted with a reference in the edit summary to grammar or poor wording, feel free to ask me about it. Remember to provide a link to the diff. (See the top of my talk page for how to create a diff.)

3) Third, if you decide to try and write an article from scratch, or do a major or minor re-working of, or addition to, an article, including even just a paragraph, you might consider doing the work in your Sandbox and then asking someone to take a look at it. You could ask either an editor with an interest in that subject matter, or a copy-editor, or both. That way, you can polish the material before you add it to the article.

4) You can read the article English language and some of the articles linked in that article such as English grammar and English clause syntax. You can also check out websites that specifically deal with English grammar and usage. In addition to explanations, they provide numerous example sentences. Just put into the search bar, "Prepositions", "Relative clauses", "English verb forms", or "Participial phrases", and you'll be led to those websites. I hope this helps.

Finally, I'm going to copy and paste your paragraph here and make the corrections:

• Hello, everyone, and sorry if this is a bit bizarre. I think my English is overall OK, but I always feel that something is wrong. May it be a tiny grammatical mistake or a serious need of rewriting, I usually come up with various explanations for that, but none of them seems to help me to get out of this sticky situation. I would be glad to receive any suggestions you might have upon reading my contributions, especially grammatical fixes. Thanks.

Should be one of these:

• It may be (subject – "It" – goes before verb – "may be") a tiny grammatical mistake or a serious need of rewriting – I usually come up with various explanations for that – but..., (two basic clauses joined with "but", with the parenthetical statement enclosed in en-dashes; an alternative to the parenthetical statement is the clause is "for which I usually come up with various explanations").

• Though it be a tiny grammatical mistake or a serious need of rewriting, I usually come up with various explanations, but none of them seems (by the way, "none" can be used in plural sense, so this could be "none of them seem")... (The part before "but" starts with a subordinate adverbial clause, with the verb ("be") in the subjunctive mood; this is a somewhat unusual construction, but it is correct. The adverbial clause is followed by the main, or independent, clause ("I usually come up with..."). This complex clause is followed by another independent clause ("none of them seems").  – Corinne (talk) 14:02, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Corinne. I took your suggestions much to heart, but I would still like to get any other suggestions other users might have. ~ Itsused^{(Talk·Contribs)} 10:50, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Upon re-reading my first re-wording, I changed my mind. You were right to use "but" before "none of them"; the question is what to do with the statement in between.  – Corinne (talk) 15:09, 17 October 2017 (UTC)