English, Do You Speak It?

[LMNO]

But Khara, the media constantly sends the message that people from the south are dumb hicks, so of course it must be true...

[Jenne]

True enough that vernacular does change.  You know I actually agree with the fact that English in America changes every so often.  Indeed English in general changes periodically (We don't speak Old English anymore afterall).

But I learned to speak English clearly, despite the fact that everyone around me spoke with a deep southern drawl.  I wanted to speak clearly and read well in a city, county and state where my peers read on a 7th grade level when they graduated.  I shall retain the right to gripe about the ones who chose the easy way, or rather did not even try, when all it took to do otherwise was to read and to listen.

There is plenty of room for dialect and for colloquialism, but those who indulge in such should be able to speak and read better than what you would expect from children reading See Dick Run, or acting as an extra in a Deliverance remake.

or kill me.

Hm...see, that can work both ways.  To my  mind, those who refuse to adapt to a different linguistic environment are lazy and uneducated.  Lazy because they just want everyone to use words and pronounce them as they do themselves.  And uneducated because they don't recognize the need for different speech communities to unify through linguistic vehicles.

It's all in your perspective.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

But Khara, the media constantly sends the message that people from the south are dumb hicks, so of course it must be true...

ZOMG LMNO you are right!  I am not taking advatage of the media hype.  I can quit trying....

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

True enough that vernacular does change.  You know I actually agree with the fact that English in America changes every so often.  Indeed English in general changes periodically (We don't speak Old English anymore afterall).

But I learned to speak English clearly, despite the fact that everyone around me spoke with a deep southern drawl.  I wanted to speak clearly and read well in a city, county and state where my peers read on a 7th grade level when they graduated.  I shall retain the right to gripe about the ones who chose the easy way, or rather did not even try, when all it took to do otherwise was to read and to listen.

There is plenty of room for dialect and for colloquialism, but those who indulge in such should be able to speak and read better than what you would expect from children reading See Dick Run, or acting as an extra in a Deliverance remake.

or kill me.

What if they're really good at, say, woodworking? Guitar making? Mechanics?

Does that make you lazy for not having learned those skills?

By your logic, it does. Lazy ass.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

True enough that vernacular does change.  You know I actually agree with the fact that English in America changes every so often.  Indeed English in general changes periodically (We don't speak Old English anymore afterall).

But I learned to speak English clearly, despite the fact that everyone around me spoke with a deep southern drawl.  I wanted to speak clearly and read well in a city, county and state where my peers read on a 7th grade level when they graduated.  I shall retain the right to gripe about the ones who chose the easy way, or rather did not even try, when all it took to do otherwise was to read and to listen.

There is plenty of room for dialect and for colloquialism, but those who indulge in such should be able to speak and read better than what you would expect from children reading See Dick Run, or acting as an extra in a Deliverance remake.

or kill me.

Hm...see, that can work both ways.  To my  mind, those who refuse to adapt to a different linguistic environment are lazy and uneducated.  Lazy because they just want everyone to use words and pronounce them as they do themselves.  And uneducated because they don't recognize the need for different speech communities to unify through linguistic vehicles.

It's all in your perspective.

It's kind of the ultimate Ugly American stereotype... not only expecting everyone else to speak their language, but expecting them to speak their DIALECT.

[Jenne]

True enough that vernacular does change.  You know I actually agree with the fact that English in America changes every so often.  Indeed English in general changes periodically (We don't speak Old English anymore afterall).

But I learned to speak English clearly, despite the fact that everyone around me spoke with a deep southern drawl.  I wanted to speak clearly and read well in a city, county and state where my peers read on a 7th grade level when they graduated.  I shall retain the right to gripe about the ones who chose the easy way, or rather did not even try, when all it took to do otherwise was to read and to listen.

There is plenty of room for dialect and for colloquialism, but those who indulge in such should be able to speak and read better than what you would expect from children reading See Dick Run, or acting as an extra in a Deliverance remake.

or kill me.

Hm...see, that can work both ways.  To my  mind, those who refuse to adapt to a different linguistic environment are lazy and uneducated.  Lazy because they just want everyone to use words and pronounce them as they do themselves.  And uneducated because they don't recognize the need for different speech communities to unify through linguistic vehicles.

It's all in your perspective.

It's kind of the ultimate Ugly American stereotype... not only expecting everyone else to speak their language, but expecting them to speak their DIALECT.

Yeah, but it's not specific to Americans, thankfully.  Any person from any given culture, I've noticed, has a certain percentage of regional dialect prejudice.  I think it's natural...you have to sort of overcome it, I think.  Or have ignored those markers as positively significant when you were growing up.

[The Johnny]

Group cohesion crap id say... "if he speaks funny then he must not be one of us..."

I speak english and spanish fully, but im doomed to make neologisms, because sometimes at a given moment i remember the english word and translate it to spanish incorrectly, or fucking up big time the postfixes of words. Also since ive lived in about 7 different USA cities and about 4 cities in Mexico that are all far apart, my accent/intonation is some weird hybrid.

SO FUCK YOU, AND STAY UNDER YOUR STUPID ROCK YOU UNTRAVELLED BIGOT.

[Jenne]

Group cohesion crap id say... "if he speaks funny then he must not be one of us..."

I speak english and spanish fully, but im doomed to make neologisms, because sometimes at a given moment i remember the english word and translate it to spanish incorrectly, or fucking up big time the postfixes of words. Also since ive lived in about 7 different USA cities and about 4 cities in Mexico that are all far apart, my accent/intonation is some weird hybrid.

SO FUCK YOU, AND STAY UNDER YOUR STUPID ROCK YOU UNTRAVELLED BIGOT.

Sounds like my husband's idiosyncracies.  No one can even place his accent, as it's not iconically ESL from ANY language group.  Very unclassifyable in a lot of ways.  And so his default is either cussing or predantic vocabulary that sounds preachy and professorial.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

True enough that vernacular does change.  You know I actually agree with the fact that English in America changes every so often.  Indeed English in general changes periodically (We don't speak Old English anymore afterall).

But I learned to speak English clearly, despite the fact that everyone around me spoke with a deep southern drawl.  I wanted to speak clearly and read well in a city, county and state where my peers read on a 7th grade level when they graduated.  I shall retain the right to gripe about the ones who chose the easy way, or rather did not even try, when all it took to do otherwise was to read and to listen.

There is plenty of room for dialect and for colloquialism, but those who indulge in such should be able to speak and read better than what you would expect from children reading See Dick Run, or acting as an extra in a Deliverance remake.

or kill me.

Hm...see, that can work both ways.  To my  mind, those who refuse to adapt to a different linguistic environment are lazy and uneducated.  Lazy because they just want everyone to use words and pronounce them as they do themselves.  And uneducated because they don't recognize the need for different speech communities to unify through linguistic vehicles.

It's all in your perspective.

It's kind of the ultimate Ugly American stereotype... not only expecting everyone else to speak their language, but expecting them to speak their DIALECT.

Yeah, but it's not specific to Americans, thankfully.  Any person from any given culture, I've noticed, has a certain percentage of regional dialect prejudice.  I think it's natural...you have to sort of overcome it, I think.  Or have ignored those markers as positively significant when you were growing up.

This is true. I have a German friend who is from the Black Forest region and speaks Swabian German, which apparently is considered a total hicksville dialect in the rest of Germany. So people other than fellow Swabians look down on him as an uneducated hick in Germany despite the fact  that the Swabian dialect is considered linguistically fascinating to German-language scholars in the US. The man is a highly esteemed biochemistry PhD with eight or nine published books, but still gets the Halfbaked1 treatment when he goes to other parts of Germany.

Fortunately, Swabians have a strong sense of cultural pride in their dialect, and are in no danger of caving to social pressure to change it.

[Brotep]

God bless them Swabbies.

[rong]

say yah to da UP, eh?

[Kai]

say yah to da UP, eh?

DIS.

Also, STANDARD IS A DIALECT. Srsly.

[Brotep]

Also, STANDARD IS A DIALECT. Srsly.

This...If we're being SRS.

[rong]

holy wah!

[East Coast Hustle]

But Khara, the south constantly sends the message that people from the south are dumb hicks...

fixed that for you.

not that I'm agreeing with halfbaked's dialectical prejudices, because I'm not. There are plenty of regional dialects of american english that don't make people sound like idiots. "Lowbrow southern" just doesn't happen to be one of them.