How quick should freelance writers be?

Hi all . I have been following your forum for a while and the information have been very useful. I have a question! I hired a " senior" freelance essay writer from essay chat and discussed work with regards to dissertation I am doing . We agreed the price and communication was spot on! One day later I got 1600 words from him to start with! Now I thought that was going to take a bit more time! I am happy ofcourse with this but just wanted to ask, is this kind of speed normal for experienced writer? Or do I have the right to worry!

Freelance writers typically don't have enough resources to manage unexpected situations. If something bad happens you may expect delays (if you order from a writing service they are usually able to reassign your order to another writer to meet your established deadline). There are exceptional writers who have a backup plan and even if they cannot work on get online, someone will contact you and keep the communication going.

It's always a trade off. When you order from an essay company, nobody really "assigns" the project to anybody at any company with which I'm familiar, regardless of what their websites imply (or say, outright). The order just goes up onto a virtual bulletin board and whichever writer (out of hundreds of writers) grabs the order first takes it. That could be their best and most experienced writer or their newest (or worst) writer taking his or her first assignment for pay before he gets fired a week later for terrible writing or plagiarism. You can "request" the writer of your choice, but in my experience, if that writer declines your request, the order just goes right up on the board and becomes available to every other writer on a first-come/first-served basis and without anybody ever checking with the customer, first. In fact, I was the writer who got the company for which I did the most work to extend the "reservation" period because they were only reserving our requests for 3 hours and we often missed requests that we'd have accepted because they came in while we were sleeping or out. A few of the other top writers and I got into the habit of protecting one another's requests by taking them as soon as they went public, just to hold them for the writer who was actually requested before someone else grabbed them; then, we'd ask Admin to move the order to the right writer's account.

Sometimes, company orders just sit on the board without anybody taking them for many days (or even weeks) and the deadline just comes and goes and eventually, you get a refund from the company if it's an honest enterprise. Admittedly, I haven't written many company assignments in the last 2 years, but I worked for more than a decade for the company widely-acknowledged to be the best of all of the American essay companies, and they had no mechanism whatsoever for letting customers know whether or not their projects had been taken by any writer. Typically, customers would use the message function on the order and that message would never even be seen by anybody, because only the writer who takes an order has access to those messages.

Plenty of times, orders just sat on the board but changed font color to red to indicate that they were already overdue and that the writer should first contact the company before taking them to make sure they're still valid orders. In fact, I used to check the board for frantic company clients who were also forum members, as a courtesy, until I was told to stop doing that. They just wanted to know whether their paid order had ever been taken by any writer. During the busy seasons, there were always (or almost always) several overdue orders sitting on the board that eventually just disappeared, including ones whose specs said that the deadline was "urgent" or "critical."

The company would often increase the payout to encourage writers to take those orders, and sometimes, they would contact me (or one of their other top writers) directly, asking us to take the order. However, in most cases, I declined, and probably for the same reasons that I never took that order in the first place. On the topic of "assigning" orders, once in a while, the company would just add an order to my account after a customer requested me and I would immediately remind the company that, irrespective of whether or not I wanted that particular order, I never wanted anything added to my account by anybody other than me, because that just isn't the nature of our contractual relationship and they removed the orders and stopped doing it after the second or third time. (As independent contractors, all company writers can take or ignore any available order and we're under absolutely no obligation to take any order we don't want. That's the best part of being a freelance independent contractor and not an "employee.")

If we're comparing legit companies and legit freelancers, at least with the latter, you know with certainty that once you pay, the order is actually on a writer's schedule. Most importantly, keep in mind that any "company writer" who is good enough to earn a living doing this is also a "freelance writer" who also takes as much (direct) freelance work as possible. So, if we're discussing legit writers and legit companies, in many cases, we're talking (literally) about some of the same writers. I can tell you that my freelance clients definitely have better access to me than any of my company customers ever had through the essay company's messaging system.


True. My calendar (along with client and emergency backup writer info) is always on my desk and my wife knows the procedure if there's ever an emergency. She knows how to contact my backups (and in the order I've listed them) and how to find all of the project info and any work I've already completed and she knows when and how to contact clients if it's ever necessary. It's never actually happened, but I've had a few close calls in the last decade or so. Every backup writer I have is someone I trust 100% whose work is comparable to mine in quality. Two of them were also among the top writers at the same company to which I referred earlier.

Finally, essay companies have no better access to us than their clients do, except that they know our emails. They don't know us personally and they've never met any of us. There's no physical facility where we writers are all on the premises working together in a big office in writing shifts, although some companies purposely try to imply that's the case. All essay company writers are freelancers writing from our homes. If I break a leg playing hockey today, the company doesn't know anything about it unless or until I contact them to let them know there's a problem with one of my deadlines. Otherwise, the company is just going to be emailing me after they get frantic emails from their customer asking about the project. Of course, being responsible and professional, I'd notify the company ASAP, but that's exactly what I'd do with any freelance project, except I'd be emailing the client directly instead of notifying the company. If anything, my freelance clients would get the news sooner from me than they would getting the same news about their projects from the company.

Thanks very much for your responses. I am so impressed to have found a reliable freelance writer! All thanks to this forum .

This is essayscam. FW: your paid ad space does not extend to posts. If you had a problem with an essay company you worked for in the past, I suggest you do what you're supposed to on essayscam: recount your story, and name a few names. It sounds like you had one bad experience, so that should be pretty easy...

But that TLDR smokescreen ad up there has zero specifics. What is this company that lets its writers hook orders without admin? Oh, they have an internal email system where "only the writer who takes an order has access to those messages?" BS! If it's an internal email system, you can bet admin has access and can see every last word you type to a customer. What happened, did you get canned because you didn't realize that?

That's another issue I have with the above puddle of vague dreck. Why'd you leave? You "haven't written many company assignments in the last 2 years," and yet you're desperate enough to be paying for ads here? Something's fishy.

Customers: watch out for this guy. He gets his business now as a renegade, so it serves him well to bash essay companies. He's not even a part of what he's talking about anymore, though, nor is he saying anything specific. My guess is that he couldn't cut it.

I didn't have a "bad experience" with the company at all. It was the same company that I got in trouble here for defending too much against completely untrue accusations posted by competitors who couldn't compete against them fairly without outright lies and malicious innuendo, just like yours against me ever since you embarrassed yourself badly in an argument with me about three years ago.


Obviously, the company has access to all communications if they choose to look at them. What you either don't understand (or are just pretending not to understand for the purpose of throwing mud at me) is that each paid order has its own messages between the customer of that order and the writer who takes that order. The messages are automatically emailed to the writer and they communicate that way (anonymously) through that system. The glitch is that once the order is paid, the customer can use that system (immediately) to post a message to the "writer"; but nobody (sorry, I mean NO WRITER) ever receives that message unless or until a writer actually takes that order, and the customer has no way of knowing that. Once the order is taken, the writer gets an on-screen notice that there are messages posted on the order.

Actually, I realized a long time ago that any writer could check for those messages even while the order was still posted, and sometimes I used to send a message that way if I had a question whose answer would help me decide whether or not to take the order. But the point was that what happens, ordinarily, is that the customer posts messages (like "I forgot to say that I need this by 8:00 AM not 8:00 PM!" or "Please only answer Question #1") but there's no "writer" to receive that message because the order is just sitting there on the board, still untaken by any writer. Sometimes, if a project that I liked had a rush deadline that I couldn't make, I'd use that glitch to ask the customer whether he or she could allow another 12 hours (or whatever) and if the answer was yes, I'd then take the order and notify Admin that the customer agreed to a longer deadline. By clicking the Messages tab, writers could contact the customer and then check back to look for an answer, but messages from the client never got sent to any writer while the order was still posted on the board and there was nothing to indicate to anybody that there were messages on the order. No other writer that I know ever realized that you could check for messages on orders still posted on the board.


I never "left" that company; my account is still active as of today. As my freelance business grew, I started writing fewer and fewer company projects simply because I earn much more for freelance work without any essay company as a middleman. Essay companies take up to 50% of the fee paid by clients and the most this one pays out to writers (except for the emergencies to which I alluded in my prior post) is $20/pg, which is substantially less than I charge for even the cheapest work.

Four or five years ago, I was routinely writing about $6,000 to $8000 of projects for this company monthly, of which I received approximately half. Gradually, as I began doing more and more direct freelance work, I cut back on my company work. Eventually, I was writing only a few hundred dollars of projects for them every month instead of several thousand dollars' worth. By the end of 2014, I was hardly taking any orders at all and I believe the last company order I took was in September of 2014, when I earned only $162 for the month. I still maintain a good relationship with the company and regularly refer clients to them (as well as to a few other writers) for projects that I don't want or can't do. Working primarily as a freelance writer instead of primarily as an essay-company writer, my income is double what it used to be. That's the only reason that I haven't taken an essay-company order in almost 2 years.


Actually, customers (especially those new to this forum) should know that "Editor75" used to be "RustyIronChains" here. If you use the search function, just check for some of his "contributions" under his old ID. (Always make sure that you change the default "Titles" to "Messages" so that your search returns aren't limited just to threads with his ID in the title of threads.) I don't "bash" any essay companies; when posters who (I believe) are undisclosed principals or employees of essay companies announce the reasons that they want people to believe that essay companies are necessarily "better" or "safer" than freelancers, I respond with my opinion to the contrary. That's how Internet forums work.

You'll find that as "RustyIronChains," this same guy who now pretends to be some white knight vigilante against fraud in this business use to brag quite proudly about ripping off clients in several different industries, including this one (by reselling old projects as new projects to unsuspecting clients paying for "original" work). You should also know that he's a consummate hypocrite whose animus against me goes back to the argument to which I referred in the beginning of this post. When I purchased a banner ad last year, he responded like this, arguing that the Recommended Services section was much "better vetted" than the banner ads (emphasis supplied):

https://essayscam.org/forum/gt/advertising-possible-2302/#msg74138



So, now, he apparently doesn't like that I'm listed in the Recommended Services section.

"Editor75" is here for the exact same reason as everybody else (who isn't a student/customer): he hopes his posts here will get him work from customers. He hopes that by posting chat logs with fraudulent essay companies, he can establish himself as someone whose on the side of customers and that you'll contact him for your projects. He continually attacks and lies about me because of a very old argument and (I suspect) because he knows that I'm a lot more successful doing this for a living than he has ever been, both as an essay-company writer and as a freelance writer. I maintain good relationships with every other legitimate competitor here who competes against me through his or her work and without these kinds of fraudulent accusations and I routinely refer work to them and receive referrals from them. I haven't posted about "Editor75" or addressed him directly in years; but when he launches these kinds of attacks, I have no choice but to respond.

Nice try-- if I were here on a fishing expedition like you are, I would have a working email attached to my SN.

That's been my problem with you from the beginning, btw-- you're not here to help people. You're here because essayscam.org is the symbolic ambulance you're chasing (in lieu of actually passing the bar and doing that for real). It's disgusting.

As for your so-called segue from company work to independent freelancing, golf clap, but I don't believe you. Even if it were true, the way you go about your work in your new form is still disgusting. People come here to inform on scams and learn about which companies are scams, not to get overwhelmed by the verbosity of cheap hustlers.

Go write your little books on Essaychat. You're part of what's wrong with here.

Nobody believes that you "don't" receive messages here through which you hope to get business. You can't even register here without a working email. Just because you repeatedly say that your messages "don't" go to a working email hardly makes it true. In fact, you once messaged me (in 2009 or 2010) asking for information about WritersBeware. I suppose the response you wanted from me wasn't ever going to get to you because you "don't" have a working email attached to your account. (Admin here can just check your old messages to prove this if they want to.)

I encourage anybody reading this to use the search function to peruse some of RustyIronChains' 733 messages on this forum before he decided to reinvent himself as "Editor75" to try a different tactic to get some business going. First, he entered "Ukraine" as his location; then he changed it to "Canada"; and lately, he's implied that he's in NY. No need to take my word for it; check Post #144 here:

https://essayscam.org/forum/wc/anyone-written-academia-research-483/4/#msg16588

You never had any problem with me until you made a goddamned fool of yourself arguing that the drinking age should be lowered because "drunk driving is a skill best learned early" and you've stalked my posts like a psychopath and attacked me routinely ever since. Prior to that, you even defended me when an essay company ripped me off. You had no problem with me back then.

You're here for the same reason as every forum member with "Freelance Writer" next to his S/N is here for the same reason. The difference is that most of us are honest about it and select "Freelance Writer" or "Company Rep" whereas you choose not to identify your reason for being here. I respond substantively to the topics of threads and you typically respond to those substantive posts with nothing but personal attacks against me that have nothing to do with the thread topic.

You have no problem with any of the other legitimate writers who have repeatedly vouched for me and referred to me as the "best in the business" both here and on EssayChat even though their contributions to this forum are no different from mine. I post without violating any forum rules and sometimes I purchase advertising for my business. Your hatred of me has nothing to do with any "principle"; you just can't get past being embarrassed (rightfully) in a stupid argument about drunk driving about 3 years ago and I suspect that you're also angry because I seem to be doing pretty well in this industry. That's all there is to your continual attacks and lies.

My posts are my genuine opinions and thoughts about thread topics and I don't pretend that I'm here to "help others" the way you pretend, although many forum members have indicated that they found my posts to be extremely helpful, most recently, in this thread, coincidentally. Your posts are nothing but very thinly-veiled attempts to establish credibility by pretending to be a vigilante "against" fraudulent companies in hopes that this will convince customers to trust you with their projects. In fact, if you aren't here for the same reason as every other writer, you're clinically insane for wasting as much time here as you do and for engaging in all those online chats with essay companies to post those logs. That's especially true considering some of your old posts as "RustyIronChains" in which you said that all customers in this industry "deserve" to be ripped off. I encourage anybody reading this to use the search function to peruse some of RustyIronChains' 733 messages on this forum before he decided to reinvent himself as "Editor75" to try a new and different tactic to get some business going for himself.

What you want people to believe is that you're "not" here for business; you're just an altruist who's chosen the academic ghostwriting industry to "clean up" as your contribution to human society. You're not concerned about all the phony foreign companies manufacturing fake pharmaceutical drugs for sale; you're not concerned with human trafficking, or with rip-offs in 1,000 different industries that directly affect human health and welfare much more than the academic writing industry. No; you're here under a S/N "Editor75" posting more than 2,000 times since changing your S/N in 2010 just to help police the academic-writing-for-hire industry for the benefit of humanity and "not" to get business here. Sure.

Okay, counselor lol, I registered here with a throwaway email, promptly lost the password, and never opened it. The fact that you doubt that just makes your motives here as a peddler even more transparent.

As for your theories of jealousy, let me say right now that I think you are a **** writer with a horrible background churning out government dreck, and your style is obtuse, wordy, and boring, probably as a result of your milquetoast background. When tasked with reading your decades-long posts, I feel like someone is slowly pouring concrete into my skull. As a published author with irons in the fire all over the damn place, the last person I'm going to be jealous of is some desperate, pushy sales creep who's trying to co-opt an anti-scam website and turn it into some sort of practice session for his lame carnival-barking. I'm jealous of people I admire who are more talented than I am, and that is not you. You are a pathetic, untalented bottom-feeder. You inspire feelings of pity, sadness, and frustration in me, not jealousy.

Now, get a clue, and go hit up Essaychat. You belong there, not here. Either that, or tell the nice people exactly what company you're attempting to discredit for your own mercenary ends.

Services / freelancers who advertise here can also be discussed. I guess most visitors prefer clearly-marked ads than reading 'organic' posts that feel like advertising in disguise.

How do you suppose most visitors feel about purposely undisclosed employees of essay companies whose posts about freelance writers vs. essay companies are intended to seem like objective advice but whose real intention is just to steer all prospective customers away from freelancers and toward essay companies?

This statement (considering the new addition to 'Freelance Writers') is pretty much, using the legal terms, null and void :)

That's a HUGE logical stretch! I find myself compelled to chew a bubble gum...............over and over again

For students, I suppose it can take weeks to complete an assignment of say 2000 words, but for an academic writer with several years of experience, work can be completed in a relatively short space of time. I generally find that a comfortable working pace is 2000 words per day before concentration starts to go and the quality of work diminishes.

Unfortunately, unless you're charging premium prices, you'll need to get a little uncomfortable. I try to write about three times that much every day and I rarely take a day off. You're right, though, and maintaining even a fraction of that working pace can be tough but, of course, that is why they call it "work." You have to pace yourself (at least I do but I'm getting old). Writing 2,000 words at one stretch without a break can be mentally and physically taxing. In most cases, I write for a couple of hours or less and then take a video game break or soak in the hot tub and read for pleasure. Even 15-20 minutes away from the project can help reinvigorate your creative juices and many of my best ideas come to me when I'm not actively thinking about a paper.

With respect to how "quick" freelance writers should be, that's like asking, "How long is a piece of string?" If a paper's topic is something I know a lot about, I can almost match Einstein's ability to write a paper without any footnotes and if I get on a real roll, the words just flow. In these cases, I can finish a 5-page paper in about an hour or so since I can still type 100 WPM. In the vast majority of cases, though, even straightforward topics require some research and, depending on the topic and length of the assignment, this process can take a long time. Research resources such as Questia and EBSCO make research more efficient, but integrating even the most on-point studies requires time and effort. In other words, IMHO, gird your loins (ouch!) if you want to make a real living doing this.

I charge £50 per 1000 words, so I'm not sure if that's considered as "premium" or not. However, that means that I earn £100 per day and I take 2 days off per week. I'm lucky enough not to have to pay for a mortgage or rent, so the £500 per week that I make easily covers bills, groceries, and leisure activities, allowing me to save around £1000 every month. If you're charging similar prices and doing 6000 words per day, my goodness I'd love your bank account :) Also, maybe you have more commitments than I do. I could write more in a day, but I prefer to stop when I know I've reached the end of my peak. Of course, if the topic is one that I'm familiar with, I can easily squeeze in more per day.

On average I can dish out 4 pages per hour if the topic is a tad difficult. If it's something I already wrote about, or something I know, I can do 2000 words in one hour/one hour twenty minutes.

I agree with PV, 2000 words per day is not nearly enough if you are living in a country with a relatively high price index. During the busy season I do, on average, between 4000- 6000 words per day. In the 2-3 months of down time, when orders come in a bit slower, I do between 1000- 3000 words. However, in the slow season I get a lot of down time, so it evens out the busy months.

There are no free days in this line of work, you're either available at all times, or you're not. I take one vacation per year, usually in the winter and that's just a week or two to visit my family. I always take my laptop and my keyboard along though.

Once you start raising a family on this salary, you'll want to work more and more, kids cost money :)

Exact time measure cannot specify. It completely depends on their situation, the hardness of topic etc.

I have been known to do 2000 (or more?) words in an hour at a push, but I prefer to take my time and aim for about 6-1200. That's for topics I know a lot about, obviously, it takes longer if I have to go and revise all the biology I used to know ;)

Completely untrue. Experienced writers CAN pace themselves. I know exactly how much work I can take in a day. If you had any actual experience, you'd know that.

Well, it sounds like you're all much faster, and consequently probably much richer, than me. I take my proverbial hat off to you all ;)

I don't know that we're all much faster, only that by necessity (kids are evil and expensive), we are compelled to work at it longer than you. Your lifestyle sounds great and I return the tip o' the hat.

I immediately saw Damian from "Only Fools and Horses"

That is still, to this day, one of my favourite shows. It never stops being funny.


Out of curiosity, do you bash on with writing and then go back to referencing, or do you do it as you go? Maybe even both interchangeably?

I try to get the citation first before I use anything from a reference -- if that's what you mean. I learned long ago that the creative process ("Oh yeah, that's another good point I need to make," or "I need to define that") makes it easy to forget to do this.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. I usually leave the reference list until the end to save losing the flow to scroll down to add each one as I go.

I do this too sometimes, but it depends. If I'm familiar with the topic, I just write start to finish and edit the reference pages as I go. If it's unknown territory ("Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun), I'll wait to edit the references pages until I've finished all or at least most of the research. This approach isn't too odious unless it's one of the arcane referencing methods that I don't use often (e.g., IEEE). I haven't found an online citation generator that I trust yet, so I still trudge through this part manually.

I've never been asked to use that method yet. I'm always surprised by how strict come professors are about referencing methods. I think it takes away valuable concentration from the content. I had a professor at university who stated that we should pick a method, stick to it, and ensure our referencing is consistent, even if it deviated from one of the popular styles. I always thought that to be much better than being obsessed with a particular style, knocking off marks if a date wasn't in brackets, or if a comma was used instead of a full stop, and so on.


I've never even given this a try.

I've found many professors are of this mind as well. Personally, I think we should abolish different referencing styles and come up with a universally acceptable in-text method (e.g., author(s)'s last name, date (year), and page number if appropriate) and similar guidelines for the reference pages. APA and MLA must make a fortune making small revisions every few years just to generate new sales of their ponderous texts. In fact, APA has managed to leverage mistakes in some versions into even greater profits by simply fixing them and releasing a new version as described.

It may be legitimate, but it still sounds like a racket to me.

Suspecting that GMTA, I've learned that others feel the same way about the desirability of a universal citation style: For instance, one librarian reports,

"Maybe there isn't a compelling argument against a universal citation style. In-text citations in the three main styles all include the author. APA also requires the publication year and page number, MLA only the page number, and Chicago only the year. Couldn't a universal style make the source clear? Bibliographies (also known as works cited or reference lists), require similar but not identical information across styles and could easily be standardized."

These same points also apply to Harvard referencing, and the basic differences between these citation styles are cosmetic. In fact, I had to keep examples of each citation style taped to my computer monitor for my first 2 years as an academic writer before I was confident enough to cite sources without a guide. Given the millions (billions?) of references that are used in academic papers each year, it is reasonable to suggest that a universal citation style could save a lot of time and money. These points are even made by the above-mentioned librarian whose best interests are served by multiple citation styles:

"Besides streamlining the research and writing process, universal citation would make it easier to cite materials across disciplines. And it would save students and researchers time and frustration. I suppose it would reduce my reference desk stats, but I could live with that. What am I missing? Is there a good reason to have so many citation styles?"

I agree wholeheartedly. For the reason you state, it would never fly though. Moreover, the majority of attempts to introduce 'universally acceptable' anything fail. Take a look at Esperanto. Great idea in principle, but just didn't work out in reality. Obviously that's a much larger idea than a single referencing style though ;) On a side note, I have many friends who are university lecturers or professors, and not a single one of them checks citations. So, I'd place a bet on the proposition that many people don't even bother using the correct ones in order to save some time. Although, when I was at law school, I had a very fastidious professor for family law who could often be found in the law library checking random citations, so it does happen.

The following is your post above in Esperanto. I think I see why I didn't catch on either ...

Mi konsentas elkore . Por la kialo vi deklaras , ke ĝi neniam flugi tamen. Plie , la plimulto de provoj enkonduki ' universale akceptebla ' io malsukcesas. Rigardu Esperanton . Grandan ideon en principo , sed simple ne funkciis en realo . Evidente tio estas multe pli granda ideo ol sola referencanta stilo kvankam ; ) Sur flanka noto , Mi havas multajn amikojn kiuj estas universitataj profesoroj aŭ instruistoj , kaj ne unu el ili kontrolas citaĵojn . Do , mi meti vetas sur la propono ke multaj homoj ne eĉ ĝenas uzante la ĝustaj por ŝpari tempon . Kvankam , kiam mi estis en jurstudo , mi havis tre elektema profesoro pri familio leĝo kiu povus ofte esti trovita en la leĝo biblioteko kontrolanta hazarda citaĵoj , tial ĝi faras okazi.


How Freudian ... *it didn't catch on either


How Freudian ...

*it didn't catch on either

I have only just skimmed this thread, but as I understand it, you guys are proposing a standardized referencing method using Esperanto. Or would the entire paper be in Esperanto?

I'll be happy to give it a try as soon as we all agree on the details. It can be like a pilot project.

Yikes! I didn't mean to conflate these two issues (you may not, of course, be serious). Citations are trouble enough without adding this requirement. I believe the Esperanto example was used by steall1984 to illustrate the difficulties that are associated with developing a universal anything. There may be one area that achieves this lofty status by century's end though. While Esperanto may be a failed experiment, I believe that English will become the lingua franca of the entire business world by 2100. It's difficult to image how the Chinese can even compete with their current languages and keyboards.



There are other constraints to using Mandarin as a lingua franca. For instance, according to Steve Kaufman, "The Chinese government is promoting the teaching of Mandarin around the world, through its Confucius Institute network, in order to establish Chinese as the new international language. Yet the difficulty of writing Chinese characters, and the tonal nature of the language, make it unlikely the Chinese will become a preferred language of exchange for people who are not native speakers of Chinese."

Moreover, as of 2008, all airline pilots and air traffic controllers were required to use English only and other signs indicate that the use of English will become even more commonplace in the future, especially in the business world. Let's keep it for referencing too...

Haha, why thank you. Now, is it really in Esperanto, or is it some jumbled Google translate mess? ;)


I definitely don't think (s)he's being serious. Are you? No, you're not. That would be quite some undertaking. I'm keen if you are though.


I've never heard this term before. I don't often use this adjective often, but it is rather fabulous, I do say so. Is 2100 a guess or did you read that somewhere. Is it definitely heading that way at a fast pace for sure. Us English speakers generally have it easy in terms of language, but I have to meet my partner's parents soon, both of whom are French and don't speak English, so I'm at a disadvantage with that one. I'm currently dusting off some old French language books.

It's an "informed prediction" :-)


Interestingly, the [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_as_a_lingua_franca] Wikipedia entry for this topic ("English as lingua franca" or ELF) indicates the native English speakers may have problems communicating with non-native ELF speakers: "In ELF interactions, the importance lies on communication strategies other than nativeness, which can lead to communicative situations where those English native speakers who are not familiar with ELF and/or intercultural communication are at a disadvantage because they do not know how to use English appropriately in these situations."

This suggests that the meaning of American and English idioms that are commonly understood between native speakers will be partially or completely lost on non-native ELF speakers, with a corresponding increase in the number of opportunities for misunderstandings. In some cases, these will be hilarious: For instance, if an American male told a fellow male non-native ELF co-worker, "A little bird told me that you were the apple of someone's eye but you'd better jump on the bandwagon and make a pass at her or you'll be back to square one," it is likely that he would receive a blank stare.

I have a lot of foreign friends with differing levels of English, and I have always been conscious of making sure that I speak English more formally with those with lower levels. I actually find it very cringe-worthy when I hear native speakers using idioms or really colloquial words when talking with foreigners, especially when they are met with confusion or a blank stare and they simply repeat the same thing. It's so awkward.

In many cases, Americans simply talk louder in order to make themselves understood (this doesn't work btw). In the future, we'll likely see the emergence of a specialized English pidgin that will have its own dictionary and thesaurus.

Oh, that happens a lot here. I once took my mum travelling with me to Asia. There was a lot of talking slowly and loudly, on her part, accompanies by wild hand gestures. It was pretty embarrassing. She calmed down after a week or two. Haha.

It wasn't easy, but I succeeded in communicating my need for an electrical fuse at 3:00 a.m. in rural Thailand to the compound security guard one eventful morning when our power went out using this method. While it was eventually effective, I'm sure they still tell stories about the crazy American acting out "electrical fuse" in the middle of the night using wild hand gestures, probably to scare their kids into behaving.