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conuly
1. I'm not a nice person. Nice seems to mean something like not saying what's true just because others disagree, or lying because other people have sensitive feelings and don't want the truth when they ask questions. I don't do that. I don't *like* doing that, I don't *want* to do that, and I'm not *going* to do that. So don't call me nice.
2.
I can't believe you are saying that standard English is a fancy dialect, and that most people consider it condescending to use it. That is just nonsense, not to mention the fact that you would look and sound like a total idiot changing the way you talk to fit every group and region you happen to find yourself in. Talk about condescending! I'd love to see how well that would go over with "most people."
A. Well, we weren't discussing English, if you're curious, and SAE *is* just another dialect. This isn't really the important part.
B. Nonsense? I don't know. It certainly fits in with my experience, where my manner of speech (standard english) was mocked behind my back (but where I could hear, don't you love it?) and where I got accused of being "snotty" for speaking the way I did. Well, not me usually. But other people who spoke the way I did, in real life and in books and on TV, I heard them all the time being called "snotty" and "show-offy" and "snobby" and, yes "condescending". I still hear that. I don't know what world you're living in that you don't hear this, but you're lucky. I hear it all the time. Did I say yet that I *hate* linguistic prejudice?
C. Well, *most* people change the way they talk to fit in with various groups. This is called code-switching. My mom, her coworker speaks Standard English at work, but Jamaican English on the phone talking to her family. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke a form of AAVE in some situations, and SAE in others. We've got recordings of this. My sister Lizziey, sometimes she speaks with a Southern accent, other times with a black accent, other times with a hispanic accent, other times with a Brooklyn accent, and sometimes like a Valley girl. This is all unconscious, but she's good at it. Most people don't speak the same way at home as they do at work. People *change* how they speak depending on the situation. It's all very interesting.
And then she said she's sure I'm very nice (gah!) and unfriended me. You'd think I'd insulted her religion! Well, in a way, maybe I did. But this is *important*.
Edit: And I'm still not nice. I answer questions truthfully, or not at all. You have been warned.
2.
I can't believe you are saying that standard English is a fancy dialect, and that most people consider it condescending to use it. That is just nonsense, not to mention the fact that you would look and sound like a total idiot changing the way you talk to fit every group and region you happen to find yourself in. Talk about condescending! I'd love to see how well that would go over with "most people."
A. Well, we weren't discussing English, if you're curious, and SAE *is* just another dialect. This isn't really the important part.
B. Nonsense? I don't know. It certainly fits in with my experience, where my manner of speech (standard english) was mocked behind my back (but where I could hear, don't you love it?) and where I got accused of being "snotty" for speaking the way I did. Well, not me usually. But other people who spoke the way I did, in real life and in books and on TV, I heard them all the time being called "snotty" and "show-offy" and "snobby" and, yes "condescending". I still hear that. I don't know what world you're living in that you don't hear this, but you're lucky. I hear it all the time. Did I say yet that I *hate* linguistic prejudice?
C. Well, *most* people change the way they talk to fit in with various groups. This is called code-switching. My mom, her coworker speaks Standard English at work, but Jamaican English on the phone talking to her family. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke a form of AAVE in some situations, and SAE in others. We've got recordings of this. My sister Lizziey, sometimes she speaks with a Southern accent, other times with a black accent, other times with a hispanic accent, other times with a Brooklyn accent, and sometimes like a Valley girl. This is all unconscious, but she's good at it. Most people don't speak the same way at home as they do at work. People *change* how they speak depending on the situation. It's all very interesting.
And then she said she's sure I'm very nice (gah!) and unfriended me. You'd think I'd insulted her religion! Well, in a way, maybe I did. But this is *important*.
Edit: And I'm still not nice. I answer questions truthfully, or not at all. You have been warned.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:04 am (UTC)Why is a debate over dialect important enough to unfriend someone over?
To me, language is a tool. The important thing is to make oneself understood (and if you can create aesthetically pleasing sounds and visuals while doing so, that's a plus).
Everything you've said here is true, but I don't see why anyoen would get worked up about it enough to unfriend you.
Oh, and you are nice. You're polite and don't lie. Lying is not nice.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:13 am (UTC)So, growing up, people are taught "this is right, this is wrong". To some people, homosexuality is a moral issue. To others, split infinitives are a moral issue. Sliding on homosexuality is winking at sin, sliding on split infinitives is letting standards slip.
You try showing your average creationist proof of evolution. They'll either say wildly illogical things (my idea that the dinosaurs didn't go extinct completely disproves the entire foundation of the crazy evolutionists), go "back to the book" (it's in the bible/grammar books, so it must be true), or yell at you and storm off.
2. Ditto, ditto, but it's also a pretty living thing. Really. *nodnodnod* And it doesn't like being caged.
3. It's a matter of belief. Agreeing with what I say would mean confronting a lot of other beliefs which are more important to her, that's clear. People don't even *realize* how ingrained their ideas of language are until they're confronted on them, and then... *shrugs*.
4. And yet, people insist that it is, and wax poetic on the little white lie. Go figure.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:22 am (UTC)b) I do that for fun, you know. As I'm a palaeontologist, I guess I am to evolution what you are to language
2. Nice metaphor. I agree totally.
3. I guess this is what surprises me, I wasn't aware language was so fundamental to people's sense of security.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:26 am (UTC)Those of us who aren't religious have the same feeling about religion, but whoops, there it is again.
And this is really a nothing, a blip. You hear the siliest things, but they're not silly. Kurds in various countries can't have Kurdish television. In Turkey, you can have folk music on the radio in Kurdish, but not the news, that has to be in Turkish. Why? In Malaysia, they're working to ban music with code-switching elements. Why? Look at the English-Only movement "You're in America, speak English!" Some people even don't like people speaking their own language among themselves. Why? (Frankly, this is why I want to learn Mohawk and Hawaiian and so on, just for fun).
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:29 am (UTC)I'm a bad, bad person. *hugs teddy bear*
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 03:30 am (UTC)