I have a friend whom I have known for ages, and he has been looking for a wife all this time. He is pretty determined about it, too: to say, he had embraced the art of on-line dating at the time when the rest of us were struggling with our first emails, managed by pine. And, I must say, he has had an amazing array of candidates, which is not surprising, given his charms, talents, and good looks. He is still unmarried, though, and the problem is: he has high standards.
The bride-to-be should come from the same city (which makes sense), she should be blonde (de gustibus non disputandum), younger than he (a bit old-fashioned but fine), and be approved by his mother as well (utterly ridiculous, if you ask me.)
She should also have good grammar. 'Can you just imagine, he would complain to me about a new candidate, she cannot spell? She just wrote 'restaurant' without a 't'?!' This one, I used to laugh about: if you like the girl, does it matter that her grammar is shaky?
Here in London, I am not so sure any longer. 'I have been living in London for 2 years but I haven't got improve my English. I would like to meet people, practice English, and enjoy with them', an anonymous admirer wrote to me. 'I would like to get to know you better and share a bit about our cultures, dancing and languages together', wrote another. 'If you are interesting you can write me.'
Yes, I can surely write you off and suggest you enjoy with an English dictionary.
1 comment:
I find the "you can write me" instead of "you can write to me" to be somewhat annoying. The dropping of the preposition for the indirect object, in the absence of a direct object, seems to be an americanism. I've encountered it all over the internet, but never in New Zealand.
Of course, I assume you find the requirement of being interesting, rather than interested, to be more of a put-off than the lack of a preposition.
I am interested in your statement in the sidebar: "I do not have a mother tongue."
So what do you mean by mother tongue then?
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