I just scroll over her posts. She may have something interesting to say, but I read fast and it takes me too long to sort out what she is saying. Besides the vernacular, sometimes her sentences seem to be structured backwards somehow. Too annnoying for me.
“If them Muslim fellahs and youall Muslim ladies blah, blah, blah.”
Why y’all hatin’ on Celestina? She’s just keepin’ it for reals, ya dig? Don’t hate the playa, hate the game. Sista girl’s got the chops to keep the beat, so all ya’ll can feel what she’s layin’ down.
Gee, if y’all are havin’ so much trouble, perhaps we could get Barbara Billingsley to translate? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit!*
Translation: Golly!
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. The large colorful fonts, centered text, and vomitous overuse of emoticons is annoying as hell and every time I see a post like that, I can’t help but violently roll my eyes and grit my teeth. I can handle the Spongemoms, raisinbreads, and even Grapists of the board but those are to that what chicken pox are to smallpox.
No. Vernacular is the language used in everyday contexts and I’ve never heard anyone other than Foghorn Leghorn or Scarlette O’Hara speak in that manner despite being born and raised in a small Southern town.
Seconded. I just ignore her contributions as I ignore anything written in whatever texting language is called. No doubt I’m missing out on things but life’s too short as it is. IMHO if you’ve got something to say, say it, don’t take it as a chance to leap up and down crying ‘look at me, look at me’.
Actually, Excalibre, I think you explained why I’ve been irritatedly skipping over her posts. It’s not that it’s in dialect–I’ve used a little bit of dialect now and again in my own writing–but rather that it’s in badly written dialect and screams “pretentious fakery” to me.
I play a computer game in which one type of character talks in a Jamaican patois. When it’s NPCs written by the game designers doing it, it’s a lot of fun: the game designers have a good ear for dialect, and it really builds a sense of character. But 90% of the players who try to talk in it just screech their fool fingernails down the chalkboard of my mind: they think saying “mon” at the end of every sentence equals dialect.
Unless you’re very, very good, you shouldn’t try to type all your posts in dialect. Celestina, dial it back a few notches, wouldja? Thanks, hon.
Daniel
Reading Zora Neale Hurston made my brain bleed.
I, too, find celestina’s writing style irksome. Not enough to have pitted it, but I tend to skip her posts after the first line or so. Things like “y’all” don’t get to me (in fact, I use “y’all” fairly frequently)–because they seem natural. The rest does not. That is to say, it would be natural (and much easier to parse) in spoken communication, but just feels wrong when written. And I’m willing to bet that it’s a deliberate affectation on her part, too, which is just annoying on another level.
I can tell none of yall ever read any Paul Laurence Dunbar. Classic African-American literature.
For that matter, those of you who can’t read dialect, how’d you ever make it through Huckleberry Finn? I’d like to see you dialect-phobes try to read just one page of Russell Hoban’s book Riddley Walker. <evil grin> You’d run screaming down the street, raking your face bloody with your fingernails, after one glance at it. I read the whole thing right through, cover to cover, and I liked it.
Yinz folks must be from Westmoreland an’at.
Has she always done this? Or is it just a new thing? I’m doing a search of her posts. It seems she has written SOME in normal tone.
As far as race goes (not that it matters!), but it seems she is black.
It looks like in the past few months she’s really been laying it on thick. Before, you’d get the occassional “y’all” or “I declare!” Now it’s every one of her posts.
In Angua’s thread:
“Well, I just wanted to make sure it’s on since folks seem to like to ignore my questions around here.”
Hmmm…
I will type in dialect mildly when it’s a funny or light-hearted post (As in, “I loves me some cheese fries!”) but not when I’m making serious posts in Great Debate, and not in every single one of my sentences. Her new schtick makes it very hard to read.
Dunbar was a poet; you’re comparing apples and oranges.
Writing in dialect has its place, and, in my opinion, it’s not this message board. I’m not going to tell anyone how to compose his or her replies, however. I’m not even going to suggest to a poster that he or she should compose his or her posts in a manner that makes it easier for me to read them. celestina’s free to post however she wants, and I’m free to skim or ignore her posts.
Hooray for you for being excited she found her ‘voice’, whatever the fuck that means.
You can bring up novelists who wrote in dialect all you want, but message boards are not novels. Here (at least in most threads) the emphasis is on quick and effective communication, something that several posters find to be impaired by forcing dialect into posts.
As for issues with dialect: I’m willing to read dialect of pretty much any kind if it’s well done and relevant and not belabored for the sake of making a point–my problem with Hurston was also rooted in the fact that I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the story she was telling, nor did I find her writing style all that compelling outside the dialogue. YM will naturally V. (And besides, this is a bit of a hijack.)
My bad for not remembering that Dunbar was a poet. However, that doesn’t change the gist of the argument. (Only bringing it up in case someone decides to call me on it.)
I’m being whooshed, right? “You go, girl?” Are you a yogurt commercial? Man, if there’s one thing that annoys me, it’s that cloying brand of pseudofeminism you see on yogurt commercials.
Aside from dialogue (which, naturally, has to be written in dialect) which freaking Zora Neale Hurston book was written that way? Is my library only stocking her books in translation?
Johanna, I don’t understand why you’re turning this into some sort of great battle for the rights of black women. I have nothing against any of the innumerable dialects of English (though certain ones in Scotland and parts of England are completely incomprehensible to me.) What I find irritating is the graceless and pretentious manner that Celestina writes in. I don’t see it as some sort of brave stance for black women everywhere, since after all who the fuck has ever heard a black woman say, “I do declare!”? That’s a white Southern Belle expression. Or is she reclaiming her black womanness by talking like a white character in a bad romance novel?
Writing the way you talk is fine. I bet you dollars to doughnuts (an ironic expression nowadays, as doughnuts cost pretty near to a dollar) she doesn’t talk like that in real life. Were she a brilliant novelist like Zora Neale Hurston, I’m be fine with it. But she’s not even capable of writing the dialect convincingly, and the SDMB ain’t a novel either. Furthermore, Johanna, please drop the “y’all must never have read” schtick, since you yourself don’t seem to have much knowledge of the authors you’re comparing her to (Zora Neale Hurston! Really!) and you don’t know much about my reading habits. Anyway, when you read a novel, you’re giving one author your undivided attention. That’s not how a message board works, since it’s a discussion oriented around everyone gaining some benefit by reading posts by all sorts of different people. We don’t place ourselves in another poster’s head long enough to enjoy their unique perspective - that’s not what a message board is, so the analogy to various writers is simply irrelevant.
It’s a way of calling attention to herself that she employed - repeatedly - in posts relating to other matters. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I like her for doing this. How self-important, to use this ridiculous vernacular in order to distract attention from the OP, in threads that were specifically centered around that person!
So, Nightwatch… you still think so?
I disagree that dialogue “has to be” written in dialect, because many writers constantly see fit to ignore dialect (or rather, accent) in their character’s voices, to the detriment of their story-telling. My pet peeve are writers, black (i.e., Margaret Walker) and white (i.e., Margaret Mitchell), who give a “normal” voice to one set of characters (say, white people) but suddenly interject hard-to-follow dialect for other characters (like black people). Um, if you’re going to do phonetic spellings for one set of dialogue (ya’ll gwine git mah potlikker), do it for ALL dialogue. Or not at all.
I love seeing dialect in stories (that’s why I love Z. Hurston), but I admit it is not only challenging for the reader at times, but it’s unnecessary to do in a medium like this. Our spoken voice isn’t the same as our written one. Something we’re used to hearing is not neccessarily what we’re used to reading.
People don’t really say “I do declare” in the 21st Century.
With all that said, I don’t think celestina needed to be pitted over this.
The problem is, we’re judged on how well we communicate here. If celestina’s new gimmick (and that’s ALL it is, a gimmick, since it only seems that lately she’s been laying it on that fucking thick) makes it hard for people to understand what she’s trying to say, people are going to ignore her.
She mentioned in the Muslim thread that people have ignored her questions. Well, there you go.
I don’t have anything against her, I just think someone might point out to her that, well, less is more.
I have to apologize yet again for misremembering things. (Oy. What can I say? It was high school, I was bored and stressed…I really didn’t like Their Eyes Were Watching God, but apparently it was less for dialect reasons than for others. Not that it matters in this case.)
::to the sound of the theme music for the Academy Awards:: [dressed in her house robe and bunnyslippers, a bemused celestina walks up the stairs, approaches the podium, accepts her Oscar, and faces the audience]
I’d like to thank the Academy of Dopers for this Pit Oscar. Why I’m just so overwhelmed I 'clare just don’t know what to do. I mean I’ve done so much in the Pit, from getting’ virtually married to flirtin’ to flamin’ and ventin’ to bakin’ virtual cookies and pies and such like, but I’ve never been Pitted until now.
I admit I’m confoosed as to exactly what Southern and/or Black English Vernacular (SBEV) rules I’ve violated in my posts. Is there a linguist in the house? I mean we might as well make this an educational exercise. Let’s get some of my sentences and parse them for SBEV rule violations.
And I must say that I’m really confoosed as to how anyone could think I sound like Scarlett O’Hara and Foghorn Leghorn. Imaginin’ those 2 accents together just puts me in a fit of the giggles. 
But, okay. Well, I got to run. Got a mountain of papers to grade, classes to plan, . . . Um, I’ll try to get back here for the Press Conference following the show to address particular Dopers what’ve contributed to this thread.
[celestina exits the stage and goes in search of coffee]
…aaaand the rest of the post is skipped. If you’re cool with that, booyah for you!
Daniel
I was just going to ask if Celestina was the one who used to do the emoting ::actions in between colons like this:: and lots of smilies?
I guess I know now!
::giggles::
Doesn’t bother me over much, but then I have trouble reading/understanding normal text!