Puncuation fads

Most of those who learn English as a second language give themselves away by either a bizarre syntax or in using it much more properly than most native speakers might. You don't even use the British spelling, which, I would think, more likely taught in European schools.

Actually I use both american and british spelling at random... I had many different teachers with different views on what version of English should be taught.
I know most of the little differences and could try to stick to either american or british but since when I write thses littke throaway texts I do so automatically and without thinking the different spellings come out at random =)
So dont be surprised if I change from neighbor to neighbour in the middle of a paragraph....

We Americans aren't THAT stupid. Portugal is in the middle-east of course.

"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on Portugal and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish." -- President John F. Kennedy, speech to U.S. Congress, May 25, 1961.

Of course we know about Portugal! We still have some of your rocks in our museums, and we gaze at you often as you slowly cross the night sky, glowing and mysterious.

Portugal is the European colony of Brazil. It was conquered several centuries ago by the devious means of getting all the natives addicted to tobacco and chocolate.

LOL Ananda you would have been more accurate if you had said coffee. Everyone loves their "bica" here (an espresso of sorts, pronounced beekuh).
Chocolate came from the Aztec drink "xocoatl" which was a horribly bitter cocoa drink bearing little resemblance to any sort of modern chocolate.
The modern "chocolate" recipe was refined over the centuries by many people in several different countries.
Oh and I should prolly also mention that we had nothing to do with the Aztecs... those were the spanish.
I dont drink coffee very often, like once a month or less, ditto for eating chocolate, or smoking. Though this backward country is a smoker's heaven right now, some companies are taking the initiative in becoming smoke-free zones or heavily restricting smoking to a few selected areas. Maybe one day our government will wake up and actually put the people's will into law.