Well, in my experience, English is not quite the - common- language shared by many other than American English speakers.
English is the international language of air traffic control, so it is a "common" language for specific uses.
As for correct English usage, I've come to the conclusion that few people on the Internet care about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. However, there is a difference between American punctuation and English punctuation that shows up mostly in the use of quotation marks - if people even use them.
There are specific word choices that can give away the nationality of the writer, such as "whilst," a word an English citizen would use, as opposed to "while" which is generally what an American would use.
Then you find bad spelling such as "alot," which is not an English word, while "allot" does not mean "a lot." Then you get to the homophones like "brake," and "break" and people often get them confused.
Another category is the total misuse of a word. My current favorite being "fitment." Fitment is now frequently used by people to mean the precision of fit between two parts, when in fact, a "fitment" is a piece of furniture. The word has nothing to do with how precise the relationship is between two parts.
The last is the total desecration of English from text messages. "ill," no longer means feeling sick, but "'I'll," or "I will." "U" is the substitute for "you." This is somewhat understandable with a character-limited format like Twitter, but continuing to use the abbreviations in a character-unlimited response only demonstrates the ignorance or apathy of the person making the post.
But if you want a true demonstration of a non-native English speaker, it comes in the from of word relationships like, "...so Please i'll appreciate it if you can
withdraw the Ad from Craigslist so that I can be rest assured that I’m in the
hand of the item..."
Yes, "...in the hand of the item..." from a Craigslist scam email. No reason to feel the least bit suspicious, given the bizarre syntax and other English errors.
