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Jane, from Nanjing, asks:
"Are both these sentences - 'He has a long way to go" and 'he has a ways to go' - correct English?"
My comments:
First of all, congratulations for noticing (that things like "has a ways to go" exist) and for not being judgmental (readily dismissing it as wrong English).
It's hard to believe, but both are correct, because English is a strange language. "He has a ways (plural) to go" means the exact same thing as "he has a long way to go", except:
A, "have a ways to go" doesn't make grammatical sense. Or perhaps it does (to the British at least) because it's American English.
B, "have a ways to go" is colloquial (spoken English). In writing, it's mostly seen in direct quotations (a repetition of the exact words out of someone's mouth).
In other words, if you want to write that Iraq is still a long way from being able to policing itself without the help, if you will, of American soldiers, write that "it has a long way to go". You may point out, of course, that this whole idea is preposterous because it is impossible for Iraq to police itself with American troops stationed there effectively running their country for them. Well, I guess when Americans are involved, events can sometimes sound a tad (a small amount or degree, British English) apocryphal. After all, the Americans were in Baghdad to rid that country of weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist and to defend freedom for Iraqis as though a people's freedom could be defended by any other than themselves.
However, if you quote someone who actually says "I have a ways to go", you must do so by putting their exact words in between the quotation marks. For example, "Jack said: 'I think I still have a ways to go before I'm really comfortable with the new software installed in my computer';" "Coach said: 'The team has a ways to go before all players are on the same page';" "Jane said: 'Chinese tennis as a whole has a ways to go before it becomes a force to be reckoned with'."
Here is a real quote from a CNN story (General: Baghdad crackdown reveals hostages, July 14, 2006) about Iraqi security (or the lacks thereof).
"Asked Wednesday if the Iraqi military and police soon would be able to snuff out the insurgency on their own, (Maj. Gen. William) Caldwell (a US military spokesman in Baghdad) replied, 'I'm not sure they're going to be able to crush anything anytime soon, but they're getting stronger and better each and every day.'
"There are still 60,000 security troops waiting to be trained and equipped, he said, and 'we still have a ways to go with them.'"
Anyways (another colloquial and ungrammatical expression for anyway), here's a tip for the Chinese learner of the English language. The key to mastering a foreign language is not to be judgmental, but to be observant. Don't judge, just observe and learn from what real people say.
Don't judge. Observe and experience.
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