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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.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 09:39 pm (UTC)Yes, of course standard American English is a dialect - what else could it be? And yes, it's perceived as "uppper class", which is not acceptable among the lower classes of this purportedly-classless society. I grew up speaking standard English myself, and during my school days I had to deliberately modify my speech in order not to be mocked for it.
I've gotten called "condescending" a lot of times - also "arrogant", "elitist", "pompous", "pontifical" - sometimes unfairly, because all I was trying to do was explain something as clearly as I could, but sometimes with justification. After all, if people feel "put down" by my using standard English even when I don't mean to put them down, obviously it's a very useful weapon against someone I want to put down. I'm not an elitist - most people who use the word apparently don't know what it means - but yes, I'm arrogant as hell, and can be extremely condescending, pompous and pontifical toward people who piss me off.
*shrugs* I'm also kind, loyal, generous, amusing, resourceful, generally patient and good-humored, and have quite of both knowledge and experience about a lot of different things... so my actual friends tend to stick around for life. But just because Livejournal calls it a "friends list" rather than a "readers list" doesn't mean that everybody on it is actually my friend.
Something to keep in mind, perhaps, not to let it bug you too much when you get un-friended