![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:10 am (UTC)Being nice doesn't mean you have to agree with people when they are wrong.
To me, nice means having manners and not being mean and you certainly fulfill those criteria.
Standing up for something you feel passionate about is not being 'not nice'(mind blank on the word I want there-- read my most recent post for clarification).
I admire you and think your morals, ethics & manners are very good.
Anyone that expects you to agree, simply to pander to them, on a subject you are obviously well-versed is simply illogical.
I've learned a lot from you, Connie, don't ever change.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:12 am (UTC)And that was the second friend lost over this, though the first one had other things going on, and didn't just storm off in a huff. Makes me feel better, though I was kinda irked, this was *right* after I wrote my essay on the history of the English language.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:26 am (UTC)There's a history behind this...
*dreamy flashback sequence*
Y'see, way back when, my first exposure to online life (chatting) was on I&S. Good ol' Insane and Strange. And somehow I became mindnumbingly popular there. I don't know *how*, considering that my favorite pastime was going around correcting people's spelling. I maintained, as I did this, that this is what *I* liked, for my mistakes to be called out so I'd stop making this. And some people would get irritated and call me "mene", especially if I noted that they were scamming others as I corrected their spelling. But my friends backed me up, because, after all, I corrected *everybodys* spelling, right?
Sooner or later, one of the naysayers would correct me. And I'd thank them. And this would *really* piss them off. How *dare* I not be upset when they corrected me! And they'd accuse me of being "mean" (note spelling).
So... wait, I had a point. Oh yeah. I'm mean.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:38 am (UTC)I think you're smarter than that.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:41 am (UTC)I don't think I'm inherantly mean or nice. Sometimes, when correcting "spelling" (it was chtspk) I was really doing it out of a sense of maliciousness than an actual desire to be helpful. That was mean. Usually, though, I really don't think I'm nice. I think I'm caring, to those I care about, and generally benevolent to everyone else, and that I don't hate people (too much energy), but nice really is a vague word. I try not to define myself with vague words.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:45 am (UTC)Maybe I equate benevolent with nice.
Not a bad thing.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:17 am (UTC)I moved to a rural town in Queensland, Australia & managed to learn localfamilyforgenerations Queenslander & to swear like a trooper to fit in because they all felt I was a snob before I did so.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-28 02:26 am (UTC)