Two autism things in the times...

First, another letter-reply to that article:

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Wow, she's obnoxious. I think at least one of the person quoted has a diagnosis of... wow, autism. Not Asperger's. And a liar. I read what she said in "A mother's response". She didn't seem so happy with the idea of Asperger's either. Notice she doesn't bring up her "Mickey Mouse costume" complaint. She was *quoted* in that damn article!

And another article, here.

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And another article... on grease?

As a fuel source. Okaaaay....

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Well, here's good news!

At least, it's good news for people like me, who support minority languages and dialects and such. Not so sure about the sillies of the world.

And something about my family...

Jenn has grown up. As proof of this, or possibly motherhood, she's taken to cursing in Walloon. I can't *spell* it, but I can transliterate:

Gott fer dom. Gott fer DOM non-de-gyuer.

Me, if I *must* say it, I say it in English - NAME OF GOD! But that's because I can't spell.

My Bonnemaman once was visiting when we were little, and she heard my mom (her daughter) yelling at us, of course cursing in Walloon. And later, she says to her "You know, I really wish you wouldn't say that. It sounds so basse classe. At least, if you must say it, say "nom de dieu". And for hours, my mom felt bad over this. Until she realized - hey, waitaminute! That's a *Walloon* expression! Where does she think I heard it if not from her? It's not like there's all these Belgian-Americans running around*!

*_{Actually, there are. Everywhere. My sister's first crush? Belgian. The boss before the last one? Belgian. That couple next to us on the plane last time I went to California with my mom? Belgian. Scary, huh?}

Oh, COOL!

A Cornish language revival.

Now, if that's not cool, I don't know what is.

Wow.

Those of you who've known me for a long time may remember I&S. Good ol' Insane and Strange. Haven't been there in ages, me. Xiggy has, though. Was there just the other day, for a lark. And somebody (some n00b, no doubt) was apparently going on about how he was "the third oldest reg, and ulyyf was his best friend". Yes. They apparently were *still* talking about me.

That's actually why I left, it got to be too creepy. I'm still not sure how I managed popularity over there, either.

Edit: Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I have to do it. Any old I&Sers wanna join me later, visit old I&S? Contact the other ones who don't have LJ or who don't list me as friends on LJ, maybe? Make a real party of it, freak everyone else there out. I should crosspost to neocolours if we ever get it back, in fact.

Edit again: It doesn't have to be *today*, y'know. Maybe later this week?

A quick definition of "standard" language, and some other stuff.

Here it is. The standard dialect is the one spoken by the people in power. They're not in power because they speak the standard dialect, this is important, rather it's that this dialect became standard because it's the one spoken by the people in power, and everybody *without* power strives to emulate it, because they want to be able to become one of the people in power. Of course, the people in power don't really want that, so language changes on all sides.

And that's really about it.

Grammar, it should be noted, is not something typically developing children have to learn in school. The typically developing child generally has mastered his or her native grammar by the age of six. In fact, most people can't begin to describe the rules of their own grammar. For example, you probably couldn't tell me what the rules are governing the order of adjectives, but you know instinctively (if you're a native English speaker) that big red dog is correct, while red big dog isn't. That's grammar. Or, even though you make thousands of unique yes/no questions in your life, you probably can't, off the top of your head, tell me the rules which you use when making a yes/no question. More grammar.

Some people have tried writing down the grammars of various languages, with a good amount of success. And a comprehensive grammar of the English language will indeed explain the rules which govern the use of double negatives in English, or the invariant use of the verb "to be" (think AAVE/ebonics), or the use of any of a dozen non-prestigious forms. Of course, the problem *here* is deciding which dialects you're looking at, because there are many many English dialects. However, you can rest assured that there is *some* book, *some*where that explains how to use a double negative in English. This book, no doubt, doesn't make value statements of right or wrong, so it's a bit of a moot point.

And there was your short linguistics lesson of the day. Tomorrow I'll find a link to the interactive IPA, that'll be fun.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot. Typically developing doesn't mean "normally intelligent". Some quite intelligent people are not typically developing in this respect, some people who are *not* normally intelligent *are* typically developing when it comes to language.

Well, this subject isn't going away...

( On linguistics and creationism )

Sorry for spamming :(

Back to politics.

An interesting editorial on prisons

( Article inside )

*sighs* I need something to do.

And there's this link, which talks about exit poll data. I'm not sure what good having it would be, though, regardless of whether or not the media should release it.