• ProtonBadger@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’ve noticed a lot number of questions on reddit/etc. suddenly gets asked in that way (“why” in front of a statement). As an ESL I was confused for a while because I’ve been drilled in asking questions using auxiliary verbs.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I blame explanatory headlines. If you searched “why does [blank] happen?” you’d get articles like “why [blank] happens.” ESL speakers (and under-educated native speakers) bungle the difference. As this spreads, reddit and Stack Overflow start displacing tech-support blogs, and suddenly the headlines themselves are wrong.