Dear Penny and Andrew,
A different syntax and even the way in
which words were formed create different patterns of thought. Today,
with more and more technological terms mingling with our everyday
vocabulary even native speakers begin to have peculiar doubts about how
to build a sentence. Computer, cell-phone, remote control commands and
such like may cause distortions similar to the ones that arise from
Andrew's "Corporate English".
Words with Latin or Greek prefixes or
endings convey "inset" information and render prepositions or
adverbs redundant.
Everyday words in Portuguese ( their "equivalents" in English such as
perfect, infect, confection, pervade, retrospect, transpose, intervene,
postpone, dismantle, consider, invade, catapult, archdeacon, ascend,
decline, aclive, recollect, extraordinary, superlative etc.) that come
from the Latin are not as ordinary in English: none of these need
specifications like "across", "through" "between", "off", "up"," from
above", "again". When using English
words that recquire such specifications I often get lost when I hesitate before adding them somewhere
( prepositions either come automatically or I'm lost.)
Expressions like "in result of", which
Penny pointed out, may indicate not only a "foreign" influence in
speech or in writing but, sometimes, its French, German or Spanish
influence or even a "corporate" faulty logic...
Jansy