Don’t be ridiculous. You might do some reading on dialect, slang, youth, etc.
This is the best response from a sociolinguistic point of view.
And this. It’s basically the education system’s official (though not always practiced) position.
Shaa…!
I’m 44 and had to train myself out of using “like” and “I’m all” and “I go” except in the most casual situations when I’m using it for effect.
I’m of the opinion that as long as kids can code-switch and know when it’s appropriate to do so, valspeak is relatively harmless. If, however, you slip into valspeak or upspeak during a professional conversation with me I will judge you and find you wanting.
Dear Gott in Himmel, I hate that one so much that I blocked it out.
Some time in the future, after he gets the septum ring and joins that thrashpunk band you will look back upon these halcyon days and sigh.
Be a good language model yourself. They will not always follow your example but that style of speech will become familiar to them, and they will be able to use it when they need to.
“Thrash punk” is actually two words, and is more often and more accurately referred to as “crossover thrash.”
To the points raised in the original post, I am 32, never talk like the kids mentioned, and, as far as I know, I never really did. I prize eloquence in others, but this has reached a point where I often find myself irritated by the speech of younger people (and not just younger people, but frequently) especially in loud groups on the bus. They just don’t sound very bright. This sort of thing came up when I was in graduate school, specifically regarding the disdain most of my fellow students seemed to show for the undergrads.
I’m all like, “True dat, y’all.”
Use the Ludovico Technique. If they use Californiaisms, immediately dose them with harsh Minnestoaisms:
“O that’s aaaah-sum!”
Mmhmm. ::nods politely:: That’s nice.
Myself and the kids I grew up with in Northern California were all trained out of using “like” and “goes” in formal speech and writing by being repeatedly told that it was incorrect (the substitute phrase we were given was “he said” or “she said”). I still sometimes say like in informal conversation, but definitely learned not to use it in inappropriate contexts.
I think you should absolutely teach your child that it’s wrong, and when he’s older you can explain a little bit more about code switching.
With cursing, I think you need to explain why it bothers you, and make a rule that it can’t be done in front of you/in your house. Your child will have to decide on his own whether he wants to curse in other locations. My father didn’t allow cursing, and I valued and still value his opinion enough not to do it whether he’s around or not. You’re not going to be able to stop it outside of your own home/presence; that’s something your child will ultimately have to decide for himself.
Speech patterns change between generations. It’s nothing to get indignant about, and the new styles are not inherently lazy or otherwise less deserving.
If be pissed if someone tried to brainwash me out of my California-isms. I may be far away, I’ve always got a piece of home just a “hella” away.
Seriously, chill. The kid is a Californian. It will speak like one.
This thread brought to you from 1977.
Those speech patterns are fairly common in Ireland. Bet you get them in other parts of the world where English dun gets spoke.
Thank you! I was going to say that.
(Actually, I was gonna say that.)
Short answer: you can’t. Kids learn from their peers and it is right that they do so since their the ones they are going to have to live with. If my father had learned from his parents, he would have spoken with a heavy Yiddish accent. Just get used to the fact that language change is constant. Go tell the surf to cease; it will have the same effect as always correcting him
My children leaned to be bi-lingual. That is, they spoke like what their mates did at school, but properly (as dictated by me) at home.
Once your kids reach that level of fluency, then yourself can work on teaching themselves not to use “myself” as the subject of a sentence. :eek: