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Sometimes I stumble upon sentences like "As a native English speaker the most natural way to say..." (https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/201348) or "It [the expression] sounds more natural, as a native English speaker" (https://ell.stackexchange.com/a/75465; nothing personal, just as an example). They always feel ungrammatical, although I understand that the word "speaking" is probably implied before the "as". (But then, well, does a truly ungrammatical sentence exist?) Moreover, they are often ambiguous: do they mean "I'm a native speaker" (as in "As a mom, it's exhausting") or rather "to sound like a native speaker, do this"?

What do such sentences usually mean? Don't they sound (perhaps intentionally) funny to native speakers?

By the way, I'm now searching for similar phrases in BNC and see this: "As a child, I can remember it ever so well, doing it, mm". Here, it's clear that the speaker is not a child but rather remembers doing it as a child, so such cases are different.

Kirill Bulygin
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To prefix a statement about oneself with 'as' in the way you describe is to claim the expertise or status of what follows:

As a gardener, I'm telling you that roses won't grow well in chalky soil.

As a resident of Manchester, let me tell you it rains a lot there.

As a non-smoker, I find the smell of cigarettes unpleasant.

Such sentences may suggest a level of pomposity, but in general they are not automatically funny or amusing.

July 13th 2018: Donald Trump is visiting Britain, and protesters have launched a 20 ft tall "Trump Baby" blimp in London. The Guardian reports a visitor saying to one of the organisers: “As an American it means so much to us that you have done this. Thank you so much.”

Guardian blimp story and pictures

Michael Harvey
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  • I think your examples are different because they are easily understood as "I (as a gardener) am telling...", "Let me (as a residernt) tell...", "I (as a non-smoker) find...". – Kirill Bulygin Jul 05 '18 at 19:29
  • Like the two examples you gave, 'as' in all of my examples could be prefixed by 'speaking...', which, as you say in your question, is a good way to understand their meaning. – Michael Harvey Jul 05 '18 at 19:35
  • "As a gardener, roses won't grow well in chalky soil." That's what Kirill iis talking about, I think. – Tᴚoɯɐuo Jul 05 '18 at 19:36
  • @MichaelHarvey I agree. Your examples are just less ambiguous. Does the sentence of Tᴚoɯɐuo ("As a gardener, roses won't grow well in chalky soil.") sound OK then? – Kirill Bulygin Jul 05 '18 at 19:38
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    Ah. I see. Such expressions as 'As a gardener, roses won't grow well in chalky soil' are possibly a lttle clumsy sounding (especially to a non-native speaker) and decidedly informal, but not to the extent that people using them would be held up to ridicule in most informal and relaxed settings. – Michael Harvey Jul 05 '18 at 19:39
  • So the "ungrammaticality" is really intentional? And it's more for "general" informality (like other such "as a ..." sentences) rather than to say something like "As a native speaker, valid still any words in my speech", isn't it? – Kirill Bulygin Jul 05 '18 at 19:43
  • I don't know if 'intentional' is exactly the right word. In informal, relaxed, spoken English, many of the 'rules' which are taught to in schools or to foreign learners are either relaxed or ignored completely. the important thing is to be understood, and excessive formality or 'correctness' can be perceived as trying to be 'superior'. – Michael Harvey Jul 05 '18 at 20:10
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    It's important not to confuse formality with correctness. These modifiers appear in formal English quite frequently and aren't simply a result of informal English ignoring the rules. –  Jul 05 '18 at 20:44
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    Technically, something like "As a gardener, roses won't grow in chalky soil" is incorrect, because it uses a [dangling modifier](https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/597/1/), and is (taken literally) saying that roses are a gardener. Informally, it's perfectly understandable, but I wouldn't use it in formal writing. – stangdon Jul 05 '18 at 20:54
  • Stangdon, indeed. Written English is liable to be much more strictly scrutinised than the spoken form. – Michael Harvey Jul 05 '18 at 20:56
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    _'As a gardener, roses won't grow well in chalky soil'_ sounds a little clumsy on its own, at least to me. But if I think of it as being **elided**, that is: _Speaking as a gardener, let me say: roses won't grow well in chalky soil_. – that seems fine. – J.R. Jul 05 '18 at 20:59
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    @stangdon Thanks for the link. So the conclusion seems to be the following. Such sentences mean what they say with dangling modifiers fixed. They are incorrect but quite acceptable in informal English (e.g., as opposed to Russian, where they are generally ridiculed even in the spoken language). I'm accepting the answer now since it provoked such a helpful discussion. – Kirill Bulygin Jul 06 '18 at 09:10
  • @KirillBulygin The real answer is most likely more nuanced, but I think it's a topic that still needs further study. Clearly many of these examples are produced by educated native speakers in formal writing and are perfectly natural and understandable, so it's a mistake to say that they are as a class errors. At the same time, many examples sound ridiculous whether they're in writing or informal speech, and should definitely be considered errors. What distinguishes these? I don't know, and that's why it needs further study. All we really know is that there is no general prohibition. –  Jul 13 '18 at 17:16
  • @snailboat That's an interesting point. Generally, since nothing is prohibited in language (and there's no official grammar of English), the "incorrect" label is always relative. I agree that further classification is desirable. Which examples sound ridiculous to you and which don't? – Kirill Bulygin Jul 13 '18 at 19:10
  • @KirillBulygin Further discussion should probably go in [chat]. By the way, you might be interested to read this blog post by a professor of linguistics: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002153.html –  Jul 13 '18 at 20:37
  • @snailboat Thanks for the link. Given all the evidence we could produce, let's just assume that these dangling modifiers are a type of ellipsis. – Kirill Bulygin Jul 14 '18 at 16:02