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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 04:59 pm (UTC)There's a difference between nice (which I would define as caring about others and their feeling) and being tactful. You can be one and not the other, but most peole equate them. Tact is, well, lying sometimes to spare someone's feelings -- or not exactly lying. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says "Tell the truth that is pleasing."
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. The thing is, a lot of people don't want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. When a friend of mine used to get negative feedback on her stories, she complained that it was the reader's fault for not reading carefully, or not understanding, or what have you. The truth that is pleasing to her was, "This is a great story, it's perfect." Obviously that isn't the whole truth, but it's what she wanted to hear, and since she equated tact and nice, she thought they were mean.
But I think I'm starting to talk myself in circles and disprove my point, and I could go into a whooole digression on criticism and how it's taken and how it relates to tact, but I won't. Bottom line is -- you're nice. You're just brutally honest :) and people have trouble dealing with that.
(BTW, there's also this problem of the Internet and how difficult it is to convey emotions through straight text, so people use emoticons and *gestures*. "Maybe if people started writing in the third person,"