Quote:
Originally Posted by lapka
Now, a little story on importance of idioms. Some of you already have read it, for some it might provide a little entertainment. I have used something along the lines " I said XYZ just because I wanted to let you save the face". I meant "let you save face". The dude interpreted my mistake as a threat of physical violence. He decided that I am threatening to destroy his face in a physical fight and reported the post. The whole thing escalated and he refused to believe that it wasn't a threat to whoop his butt even after my explanation. After this story, I have a lot more respect for mods, who have to regulate all that crap and can refrain from just banning everybody in sight.
Now a little story on
the importance of idioms. Some of you
may already have read it,
but for others it might provide a little entertainment.
This next sentence needs restructuring. "I have used" implies that this is something you have done multiple times in the past. Also, you may want to indicate early on the setting of your miscommunication. Like, "In a forum post I said to someone "..."."
And sorry to continue piling on, but in the following story, you repeatedly change up your verb tenses. This is something native speakers mess up (myself included) very often but it is something be aware of you. You go from "present perfect" (have used) to "past simple" (said, interpreted, decided etc) and even use "present continuous" (am threatening). You likely want to stay with past simple.
In a forum post I said something along the lines of "I said XYZ just because I wanted to let you save the face". I meant "let you save face". The dude interpreted my mistake as a threat of physical violence. He decided that I
wasthreatening to destroy his face in a physical fight and reported the post. The whole thing escalated and he refused to believe that it wasn't a threat to whoop his butt even after my explanation. After this story, I have a lot more respect for mods, (remove this comma) who
must regulate all that crap and
are still able torefrain from just banning everybody in sight.
"have to" is kind of ambiguous. It is technically correct but can be confusing and sound stilted in writing. In every day speaking it is better.
The "can" refrain doesnt make sense to me. You could use "must" here. Or maybe my above edit is more the sense you were getting at.