1. ohmyrichard

    ohmyrichard Active Member

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    cause some reading difficulty on my part

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by ohmyrichard, Nov 14, 2008.

    Hi, guys. My pen pal is using his laptop to write emails to me. Maybe his laptop goes wrong sometimes or when his emails reach me, they are misdecoded, his emails always have many &#39's, whose meaning I always fail to make out. I want to tell him about this problem. My question is: Can I say in my email to him that these strange signs may be caused by misdecoding and causes some reading difficulty on my part? I mean, is "causing some reading difficulty on my part" acceptable and natural to native speakers' ears? Are there any better versions of the same sentence? I googled this sentence structure just now but failed to get anything very valuable.

    Thanks in advance.

    Richard
     
  2. Jonesy

    Jonesy Member

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    I believe &#39 occurs in place of a '. It occurs sometimes in webpages as well, not sure if there's a fix. You could try changing the font and see if that works.
     
  3. Etan Isar

    Etan Isar Contributor Contributor

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    I can't tell you what that code stands for, though it may indeed mean an apostrpahe.

    As for your sentence:

    "These strange signs may be caused by miscoding and are causing/cause some reading difficulty on my part."
     
  4. Ennui

    Ennui New Member

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    The code is gibberish and unfathomable,and candidly,there is no way to redress this.If it is a malfunction,beseech your pen pal to use a Yahoo mail account rather than Microsoft Outlook.
     
  5. ohmyrichard

    ohmyrichard Active Member

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    Thank you all for your suggestions. Honestly, I am asking a question about the acceptability of a sentence which will used in my email to my pen pal, rather than how to address the computer problem. Perhaps I did a poor job in explaining my problem in my first post.If so, sorry for that.
     
  6. eclecticism7

    eclecticism7 New Member

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    Yeah, the sentence is great the way you wrote it, although it's going to make you sound smart, and people get mad at me when I sound smart... As long as it's not a peer that you haven't know for very long or someone much younger than you (more than a year or so), it will work fine.
     
  7. Scarecrow28

    Scarecrow28 New Member

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    Something similar happened to a friend. The email looked fairly normal, but when she printed it out, it came out a jumbled mix of randomized numbers, letters, and symbols. :rolleyes:
     
  8. ohmyrichard

    ohmyrichard Active Member

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    Hi,eclecticism7.
    Thank you for your comment on my sentence. You are the first one to talk about my sentence instead of that computer problem I planned to mention in my letter. I now know that most people read carelessly. And now I have got a better understanding of the word "perceive": When people perceive the world, they choose what they are most interested in; however, they may miss the target in most cases.
    Thanks for your reply, but I am still very sorry that I do not understand this reply of yours quite well. Would you please enlighten me about it. Do you mean that your "Yeah, the sentence is great the way you wrote it" may sound like flattery, which will make me too proud of myself? I know you were joking in this part. Does your last sentence mean that if the person I am writing to is an old buddy of mine, my sentence will work fine with him or her. Then, what will people who do not know each other very well use if they are in this writing situation? And what will present-day youngsters use instead? Please tell me all about it.
    Many thanks.
    Richard
     

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