English, Do You Speak It?

[Golden Applesauce]

Also, OP, when you say "English," are you talking about American Midwestern Vernacular?  If so, that's a pretty idiosyncratic definition of English.

[The Johnny]

You're simply NOT the target member of their speech community.  You don't recognize the covert prestige of their lexicon, and therefore you're frustrated with the lack of communicability between you.

Now, if you were part of their cohort, you'd realize that they are using perfectly acceptable linguistic registers.  You'd realize that they were only using the language that is commonly known within their microcosm, and exhibiting behaviors that coincide.  You do have a common linguistic form that you can share, but both interlocutors have to agree to use this register, and code-switch accordingly.

In other words, they're not talking to you, they're talking to others near you.  If they meant for you to respond or NOT be annoyed, they'd speak using the words you use in the way you use them.  So by going off, you're just playing into their hands...or worrying/venting about something that has nothing to do with you.

This.

Although who knows... maybe ur part of the grammar police and a snob, or maybe ur dealing with people that just dont have education, or maybe not even that, they just lazy?

[BabylonHoruv]

I'm really pretty strongly in favor of language fracturing.  Different languages create different ways of thinking, different ways of perceiving the world and the more of those there are the better in my opinion.

Of course people limit themselves when they choose to interact in only one dialect, but that is just as true of the person who remains stuck in Upper Midwestern as it is the person who can't stop communicating in Honkybonics.

[Suu]

I didn't really hear a southern accent when we met.


Then again, mine only shows up after a certain number of drinks, so...


Either way, some southern accents are downright sexy.

I tend to keep it under control these days. I find it does me more harm than good. Plus, the addition of the word "wicked" to my vocabulary is slowly starting to eat away at my pronunciation of the letter "R". Therefore, I've started to develop a new fandangled sort of personal vernacular that's horrific.

[Halfbaked1]

Oh, I can handle dialects.  I can switch them so fast that I have had full conversations with myself for auditions.  No, rather it's the lazy speech patterns that annoy me.  Like Axe instead of Ask, or Amboolance instead of Ambulance.  Pronunciation I guess.  And it may be that I am just getting older and becoming more intractable and grumpy.  My parlance tends to consist of colloquialisms from the sixties and seventies and I say Dude...way more than I should.  I actually have to think when I deliberately spell things shorthand, and I am a self avowed "Grammar Nazi" amongst my friends, though I am mellowing.

I grew up in the South, Alabama to be more precise, and I still get old guys who ask me, "You aint frem araound hyar, are ya Boay?"  That phrase always makes me nervous.

[Jenne]

You insufferable twits.  What the hell do you think the classes on English and grammar were for when you were growing up?  So you could read Shakespeare?  NO!  So you could fucking communicate on a basic level with other English speakers, like me, the authorities, the people you may need if it all drops in the pot and you find yourself swimming in shit with no way out but to ask someone you just got fuckin thru bitching about in some half assed monkey spooge way that is only understandable by your own little clique. 

Look, I grew up in America, I'm hispanic and I speak English with no fucking accent!  you grew up in America, are white or black and all you can do is slur some kind of garbled mess at me when you want to ask me for help or to get some kind of assistance from someone?  Give me a fucking break!  Every time you "Axe" for something, I wanna give you an axe to the cranium ya low browed fuck for brains!  Enunciate just a little, try it, it won't kill you, and in fact it may save your worthless, dubiously sentient carcass from a premature demise!  Do not ask me to learn to understand stupid when I have actually taken the time to learn how to speak properly and develop a vocabulary larger than what is required to order a pizza.

...or kill me.

You're simply NOT the target member of their speech community.  You don't recognize the covert prestige of their lexicon, and therefore you're frustrated with the lack of communicability between you.

Now, if you were part of their cohort, you'd realize that they are using perfectly acceptable linguistic registers.  You'd realize that they were only using the language that is commonly known within their microcosm, and exhibiting behaviors that coincide.  You do have a common linguistic form that you can share, but both interlocutors have to agree to use this register, and code-switch accordingly.

In other words, they're not talking to you, they're talking to others near you.  If they meant for you to respond or NOT be annoyed, they'd speak using the words you use in the way you use them.  So by going off, you're just playing into their hands...or worrying/venting about something that has nothing to do with you.

(that's my view on prescriptivism and spoken discourse, and I'm sticking to it)

Not everyone knows enough language to switch registers/dialects that easily, though. In an emergency situation, I'd think they'd prioritize communicability - which either indicates that the don't have enough doings outside their language bubble (which you can't complain about, OP, since you apparently don't either) or that in moments of panic they revert to their most familiar method of talking and forget that the dispatcher can't understand that dialect except with mild difficulty.

wut?  Are you talking about second-language-learners?  Because that's not the case here.

[Jenne]

Oh, I can handle dialects.  I can switch them so fast that I have had full conversations with myself for auditions.  No, rather it's the lazy speech patterns that annoy me.  Like Axe instead of Ask, or Amboolance instead of Ambulance.  Pronunciation I guess.  And it may be that I am just getting older and becoming more intractable and grumpy.  My parlance tends to consist of colloquialisms from the sixties and seventies and I say Dude...way more than I should.  I actually have to think when I deliberately spell things shorthand, and I am a self avowed "Grammar Nazi" amongst my friends, though I am mellowing.

I grew up in the South, Alabama to be more precise, and I still get old guys who ask me, "You aint frem araound hyar, are ya Boay?"  That phrase always makes me nervous.

The point:  you are missing it entirely.

It's not LAZY speech.  It's just a different KIND.

And America doesn't have an official spoken language, by the way.  England does, but America doesn't.  Official written is what's used to simulate one, however.

[LMNO]

The more he posts, the more I realize he's pretty much the kind of person who gets pissed off when you end a sentence with a preposition, or consistently misspell "necessary", only aurally.

[Jenne]

To be fair, English teachers (frankly, most language teachers) will tell you that there is only ONE form of a language and all other usages are just LAZY.  It's not till you take classes on the social dynamics and utilitarian nature of language that you really learn that's just so much scare-tactic bullshit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The more he posts, the more I realize he's pretty much the kind of person who gets pissed off when you end a sentence with a preposition,

I kinda like that.

TGRR,
Was damaged by a Canadian upbringing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

To be fair, English teachers (frankly, most language teachers) will tell you that there is only ONE form of a language and all other usages are just LAZY.  It's not till you take classes on the social dynamics and utilitarian nature of language that you really learn that's just so much scare-tactic bullshit.

There IS only one form.

RPRIME.

[Jenne]

To be fair, English teachers (frankly, most language teachers) will tell you that there is only ONE form of a language and all other usages are just LAZY.  It's not till you take classes on the social dynamics and utilitarian nature of language that you really learn that's just so much scare-tactic bullshit.

There IS only one form.

RPRIME.

Well, yes, of course. 

[Richter]

If anyone isn't willing to speak RPRIME, they should be civily given one chance to deport and learn Esperanto.  They can then spend the rest of their lives talking with people who've learned Esperanto, and watching William Shatner movies. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

If anyone isn't willing to speak RPRIME, they should be civily given one chance to deport and learn Esperanto.  They can then spend the rest of their lives talking with people who've learned Esperanto, and watching William Shatner movies. 

Everyone should watch William Shatner Movies.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, I can handle dialects.  I can switch them so fast that I have had full conversations with myself for auditions.  No, rather it's the lazy speech patterns that annoy me.  Like Axe instead of Ask, or Amboolance instead of Ambulance.  Pronunciation I guess. 

How is that laziness? It's not like it's harder to pronounce "ask" or "ambulance". It's just dialect; it's how they grew up pronouncing those words. Like when people say "nucular", or add an R into "wash".

In my opinion everyone in the US should be taught how to speak academic English, but reality is that they're not. You really going to call them lazy for not being able to switch between dialects with great facility?