[3] A typical example has just been noticed by the writer: a Dutch student's pronunciation of 'know it' was almost unintelligible, but when advised to replace this rendering by the Dutch word _nooit_ he produced a very close approximation to the English pronunciation.
Let us be quite sure we understand what we mean by the term 'accuracy.' There is, of course, no such thing as intrinsic or unconditioned accuracy; the term is a relative and not an absolute one; this word, and its synonyms 'correctness,' 'rightness,' and the adjectives 'accurate,' 'correct,' 'right,' 'good,' 'proper,' etc., all imply _conformity with a given standard or model_. If the dialect we are learning is an unclassical one, differing appreciably from the literary form, then accuracy will consist, among other things, in not using the literary or traditionally correct forms. Therefore, if we are learning colloquial French we shall be guilty of inaccuracies every time we use _cela_ instead of _ça_ and every time we use the _passé défini_ (or whatever the present name of this tense may be) or the _imparfait du subjonctif_. Whether the French Academician approves of the colloquial forms does not concern us from the moment that we have set out to learn the colloquial forms. _Du bon pain_, _c'est pas ça_, _i' m'a dit que'qu'chose_ may or may not be typical of educated speech, but if, for reasons of our own, we have decided to acquire the type of speech exemplified, then _de bon pain_, _ce n'est pas cela_, _il m'a dit quelque chose_ will be inaccurate as not being in conformity with the standard we have chosen.
_Who do you give it to?_ _What have you got?_ _It's me_, _Under the circumstances_, etc., etc., may or may not represent an atrocious English dialect; but we may decide to teach this dialect to our foreign students, if only because this is the dialect most often used by the average educated speaker. Once we have made this decision we shall consider as inaccuracies such forms as _To whom did you give it?_ _What have you?_ _It is I_, _In the circumstances_.
When, therefore, we use the terms _inaccuracy_, _mistake_, _fault_, _wrong form_, _error_, etc., we shall always mean _something not in conformity with the type of speech chosen as a convenient standard_.