A confession to make....

[conuly]

Although I do dislike prescriptivism, the reality is that my normal dialect is actually very close to Standard American English. I even use the subjunctive, and the word whom. It's tragic :(

When I say things like "youse guys" or "djusk' a" or the random Latin, I'm doing that consciously because I want a more interesting idiolect.

I'm sorry for misleading people.

*sniffles*

Well, that's done. Now we can forget it ever happened, okay?

Oh, and something else - just because prescriptivism is evil does NOT mean that I have given up the right to thwomp you all seriously for saying something nonstandard (if I think that's what you're trying to do). If you don't want to be corrected, you should say so, because I hate to see something that's very nearly standard, but not quite. So if you're typing standard english, standard english, standard english, between him and I, standard english - expect me to yell and change the I to a me. And explain why. Ad nauseam.

Thank you.

Again, let's just forget this ever happened.

*runs off*

Comments

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Is your spoken English as perfectly standard as your written English would be if you didn't change it on purpose?

(Do most people learn those almost as two separate languages?)

[conuly]

Very much, yes.

My mother is an intellectual snob, and an editor. So I speak as I was raised, and... well... that's Standard.

[conuly]

And yes, yes they do.

[wakasplat.livejournal.com]

Okay, that makes sense. Spoken language, even when I was ostensibly better at it, was nowhere near as standard as my written language. (It was a hodge-podge of dialects, some standard some not, and seriously annoyed many teachers who still couldn't find anything to fault in my written work.) I was told — by someone trying to defend how I was harassed by a particular teacher around my (in)ability to speak "properly" — that most people write exactly how they speak, and therefore the teacher must have been afraid I'd write like I spoke.