Not Dose, the Word is DOES.

Forums: English
Email this Topic • Print this Page

I started noticing this a few days ago. A number of people were writing the word "dose", when they meant "does", which is the third person singular present tense of do.

At first I thought that it was just a typographical error, but when I saw the mistake happening over and over again, I realized something. It was our group of Chinese student members who were making the same error, over and over again.

So remember, when you are using the verb "to do", it works this way:

I do

you do

he or she DOES!

Hope that helps!

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 1,577 • Replies: 20

No top replies

Phoenix--

Good luck.

I hope the class instructor is keeping an eye on the A2K posts from China.

0 Replies

Noddy- It would be wonderful if we could engage the teacher in this effort. I think that what these students are doing is great. If the students could get some feedback from the teacher, I think that we could help them a lot more.

0 Replies

I wonder if they are able to take the time to look over the board, or if they are so squeezed for space on the computer that they have to just post and run.

If they are able to look around, there is a ton of information to be had here that would give any student an A.

0 Replies

I find this thread to be awfully petty. Certainly people should learn to correctly spell the words which result from conjugating verbs--but i doubt if this is the venue for them to learn these things. We have intelligent and obviously well-edudated members here who are also obviously native speakers of the English language who routinely fail to distinguish "your" from "you're" and "there" from "their" and "they're." I think it a bit much to focus on an error such as this when the evidence of sloppy or ignorant spelling is so evident around us, never mind those occasions upon which so many of us make typos.

0 Replies

Setanta- Well, maybe it is a small error, but apparently the mistake seems to be made by many of the students. One thing that I don't want to do is to reinforce errors in the students. It is a lot easier to learn something correctly, than to have to unlearn an error.

I don't think it is being petty at all. I think that it is CARING!

0 Replies

Setanta wrote:

I find this thread to be awfully petty.

0 Replies

Phoenix32890 wrote:

Setanta- Well, maybe it is a small error, but apparently the mistake seems to be made by many of the students. One thing that I don't want to do is to reinforce errors in the students. It is a lot easier to learn something correctly, than to have to unlearn an error.

I don't think it is being petty at all. I think that it is CARING!

Then it is properly addressed in threads in the English forum or the Languages forum in which the student makes the mistake. I think you're just being silly to make a separate thread about it, and the more so as this thread is likely never to come to the attention of students who spend an hour or less online each week.

0 Replies

You choose dese, I chose dose

Euripides, I ripp-a dose.

Yo has bin warned.

0 Replies

the easy answer is to corrct the post as a teacher would.

what deos does english word sthsomething meantmean

Sth is not a word if you mean "something" write the word in full.

thank you for posting on A2K

0 Replies

dadpad wrote:

the easy answer is to corrct the post as a teacher would.

what deos does english word sthsomething meantmean

Sth is not a word if you mean "something" write the word in full.

thank you for posting on A2K

That is entirely reasonable, and i usually proceed in more or less that manner, although less colorfully.

0 Replies

One of the students posted a question asking how to provide the instructor with a link to their questions and our responses.

Hopefully, the instructor will eventually follow those links and perhaps learn something as well.

(though I suspect the instructor is already here, browsing around)

0 Replies

Setanta- Your suggestion of correcting right on the thread with the incorrect word is fine........................except that I am not in the mood to keep correcting and correcting ad nauseum each time yet another student makes the exact same mistake.

I figure that once is enough. If they don't get it, they don't get it. At least I attempted to point the students in the right direction.

0 Replies

Grammer. It dose a body good.

0 Replies

Phoenix32890 wrote:

I figure that once is enough. If they don't get it, they don't get it.

Once is enough is certainly not how I learned English.

0 Replies

Phoenix32890 wrote:

Setanta- Your suggestion of correcting right on the thread with the incorrect word is fine........................except that I am not in the mood to keep correcting and correcting ad nauseum each time yet another student makes the exact same mistake.

I figure that once is enough. If they don't get it, they don't get it. At least I attempted to point the students in the right direction.

Your response assumes that these students will see this thread and understand the intent. I consider that an unwarranted assumption. The odds are high that they have very little online experience, and very little time available to go online. The odds seem very good, in fact, that their access to the the internet is brief and restricted. I doubt that a single one of them will ever notice and read, let alone understand, this thread.

0 Replies

ehBeth wrote:

Phoenix32890 wrote:
I figure that once is enough. If they don't get it, they don't get it.

Once is enough is certainly not how I learned English.

Same here . . . and English is, at least theoretically, my native language.

There is a passage in How Green Was My Valley, in which the main character, Huw, mispronounced the word "misled," reading it as "mizzled." The teacher ridicules him in class, and he retorts that he can't be faulted for having read many more words than he had ever heard spoken. I would amend that to say that the Chinese students are hardly to be faulted for simple errors made in learning a language which could hardly be more alien to them. That they are able to express themselves at all in English and in this medium is an extraordinary accomplishment.

0 Replies

great point, Set. i'm still not sure if lichen is pronounced LITCH-in or LIKE-en. Embarrassed

in high school, i pronounced buchanon BUTCH-a-non, and another student laughed. didn't bother me any...even though i went exclusively to English speaking schools in Japan, i never encountered the name until i landed in the US. later on, i was asked for the author of Faust in an IQ test, and i said GOWTH, instead of GER-ta. i still got credit for the answer. Laughing

0 Replies

I long thought the word was Goth, and that the people who used the name were just spelling challenged. Fortunately, i heard the name spoken before i had an opportunity to make a fool of myself in class.

0 Replies

in Japan, it's approximately GAY-teh.

going way off topic, but just remembered an amusing incident. i was once talking to a woman recently emigrated from China, and at one point i refered to Bruce Lee, but obviously she had no idea who i was talking about. finally, i imitated his high-pitched vocalizations, at which point she laughed, said something about talks like a woman, i nodded, then she said something unpronounceable, which was presumably his Chinese name. Laughing

0 Replies

Not Dose, the Word is DOES.

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know