I should clarify that here I mean usage that’s nonstandard for the community you’re in, not speaking in a dialect that isn’t the “Standard” one.
Ahh, you’re the victim of bigotry! I see. Except, as I mentioned, I’m a student of linguistics. I most assuredly do not assume people are stupid on the basis of the dialect they speak in. Hell, it seems to me that the great majority of America’s great writers are from the south. Were I to fault people for writing in dialect, I’d have to start with the likes of Mark Twain and William Faulkner, and move on to Toni Morrison. I’m hardly likely to insult my favorite writers. Besides, I take it as an axiom that all dialects are equally worthwhile. No dialect indicates stupidity or intelligence, beyond the fact that certain ones (Received Pronunciation, as taught at Oxford, for example) are generally only used by the highly educated in an effort to sound smarter.
None of this changes the clumsy, affected quality of your writing. Others agree with me on this point. Notice that, while a lot of people have stood up for you, it’s to say that “yeah, it’s silly, but there’s bigger things to worry about.” That’s not a wholehearted endorsement.
I can’t help but wondering what point you think you’re making by listing a word etymology. Shall we take turns? I can do that too.
Why the constant references to famous writers? No one said that the use of regional vernacular in writing is inherently bad. But you’re not a famous writer, and if you are, this isn’t one of your books. I don’t understand why you and Johanna think it’s relevant what any famous writer does, since this situation is completely different, for reasons enumerated earlier.
celestina, it sounds fake. Affected. It lacks verisimilitude. I dunno what else you want me to say. In asking people to parse your speech and determine why it sounds fake, you’re asking us to do something that is not within the realm of what linguistics studies. So we’re judging it based on our guts. It just sounds stupid.
You know, I said earlier that I thought you had some valuable things to say. I did not mean this thread as an attack on you, and it’s obvious from your posts that it’s had a much bigger effect on you than I meant. It’s a minor irritation; you’re reading too much into it when you think we “associate stupidity with dialect” or dislike you as a result. But a number of people have explained that they don’t even want to go to the effort of reading your posts when you use this silly affectation.
It’s just plain harder to read. There’s ways to let your voice shine through without trying so damn hard to make sure every single sentence has something to explicitly mark it as “dialect”. If you really need to compare yourself to great writers, look at their writing. Most dialect isn’t nearly as heavy-handed as yours is. It makes your posts hard and unpleasant to read, and it sounds silly. Frankly, I wonder what you really do sound like when you talk - it’s possible that you really just aren’t capable of translating your speaking style into writing very well, but it really has the feel of some kid who goes to England for a month and comes back with an “accent” - at best you’re gonna humor him and roll your eyes.
Like I said, it’s a minor irritant, not a reason to get angry. I just wanted to say something; it’s on the level of having spinach on your tooth. It didn’t merit two pages here. Either stop doing it, or make piece with the fact that a good number of people aren’t going to read your posts as a result of it.
Bah. Standard English is overrated, anyways. And having known plenty of Southern ladies in my life, I have no problem believing celestina talks that way. But then again, the code that she’s using is one that I’m eminently familiar with, so her posts don’t break me out of my reading trance at all. I mean, sheesh – it’s a gaddang message board. True, we ain’t writing fiction, but we ain’t writing scholarly articles, either, and it ain’t hurting no one to see a bit of dialect now and again.
When writing on a message board, I tend to use as much dialect anyway, and use run-on sentences, and wrong words, and y’all. Especially y’all. And fragments.
I have no room to speak, nor would I bother. Whatever.
Dang, late again. Missed both the awards ceremony and the press conference. I really wanted to check out the general effect of the bunny slippers, too.
Uh…Excalibre? "Clumsy and affected"is your opinion; “others agree with me” is just an appeal to nebulous authority. Of course you’re entitled to express your opinion until the cows come home, but I’m a bit puzzled why you’re making such a to-do over this one.
FWIW (not much), celestina’s, and others’, use of occassional vernacular doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s the salt, spice and healthy slug of Tabasco of communication, so here’s an emphatic vote on the other side.
Then again, I rather savour non-purist versions of language. It’s the difference between the leaden thunder of academic/officialese and the pithy, pungent language of diners, buses and the corner tap. IME the earthy, unpretentious version often works more effectively. Sure, it can be a little trickier in writing but I’ve never had the least difficulty grasping what celestina meant, no matter what ‘voice’ she used.
If this bothers you…okay, it does. It just seems like such a quirky, tiny thing compared to egregious failures of heart, mind and sense.
Veb
Gaudere strikes again.
It’s ‘peace’, as long as we’re being so picky about language and all.
It’s one thing to speak in dialect in person, especially with people who tend to speak the same way, but it’s often very hard to READ. People read differently than they hear things. And like pasunejen said:
If you were to hear me talk, you’d hear me say “up-air” instead of “up there,” “shahr/shower”, “ahrn/iron”. However, I’m not going to WRITE that way. Accents and dialects are ways of SPEAKING, and pronouncing things-not ways of WRITING.
catsix and I, for example, hail from Pittsburgh. So naturally, both of us probably have something of a Pittsburgh dialect. That being said, I don’t go out of my way to post in that dialect. I don’t think people in GD or GQ would take me seriously if all of a sudden I started something like:
“Hey! Wadda yinz think ‘bout dem tarhrists ova der in da midda-eze? Ah think dey need wiped aht an’ at.”
Maybe it’s my ADHD, but it takes me longer to read your posts, celestina. I don’t think you’re stupid, or silly. I just think that since we’re not communicating face to face, where we have facial expressions and tone of voice to help get our points across, we need to be as clear and concise as possible.
Once again-writing words and speaking them are very different, at least to me. I read things differently than I hear them.
(And I don’t think it needs to be a FLAMING pitting, but maybe just a little baby advice type pitting.)
WADR**
Excalibre is being picky about language, not typos; if even he’s being picky.
**With all due respect
Madre de dios, ayudame, por favor. [celestina goes over to the corner, pours herself a glass of wine, and takes a healthy sip]
Excalibre, I’m really trying to be patient with you, but your ignorance and intolerance, and the patronizing way your posts read are really starting to get on my last nerve. I don’t know what kind of “linguistics” you’ve studied, but it certainly doesn’t sound like linguistics to me. Linguistics is a social science that focuses on phonology, morphology, and syntax to name a few. The point is to record language as it is actually spoken, to investigate language acquisition, and to quantify and qualify language change. It doesn’t deal with “judgments based on someone’s guts.” In asking you and anyone else who doubts the veracity of my dialect to parse my sentences for SBEV errors, I don’t think I’m asking too much. If you have studied linguistics, then you should be able to point out where my dialect is “fake” or why it “sounds stupid.” Help me to understand this because I’m not seeing it. If you can’t point to specifics, then you need to examine these gut feelings you have for the ignorance and the intolerance that they show. In other words, either shit, or get off the pot.
I mention the etymology of “silly” to educate folks and to point out that I don’t consider being called “silly” a terrible thing. The jury’s still out on what you intended with this thread; however, it does read to me like an attack on my character when you say that the dialect I write is “fake” and “sounds stupid,” but then when I ask you to clarify where exactly it’s fake, you won’t do it.
I mentioned one famous writer, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who had facility in SAE and BEV and who found himself in the crazy position of having what language he could publish in being dictated to him by whites. I make no claim to fame, but I can relate to how Dunbar must have felt since it would seem that you in this thread are trying to tell me what language I have to write my posts in. Who made you the arbiter of standards here at the SDMB?
pasunejen said:
So, on a message board dedicated to fighting ignorance, why can’t I express myself and expose folks to a code that they may or may not used to seeing/hearing/reading? Aren’t we here to learn about other cultures, or is that something that Dopers pay lipservice to? The point is to educate in part, but the other is just to express myself.
{{{Tveblen}}}, thanks for your words, hon. [giggle] When I’m trying to kick some sense into folks, I find bunny slippers so much more comfortable than high heels.
Guin, now that’s some interesting dialect there. Thanks for sharing. 
It almost sounds Southern in some ways. You think that dialect of Pittsburghese was influenced by folks coming up there from West Virginia to work in the mills and mines and stuff? If folks in GD or GQ wouldn’t take your ideas seriously because you posted them in dialect, well that’s just a shame. I understand what you mean when you note that dialect takes a little more time to read, but it’s so much fun to read, IMHO. As far as me posting in dialect, I tend to write/speak in the language that is in my brain. I don’t understand how my brain works. Many times I’ll be conversing with folks, and all of a sudden I’ll code switch. I don’t know who’s more surprised, my friends or me. At any rate, I make no promises about what language I’m going to post in when. I understand if folks don’t want to or can’t read my posts. We live to learn, or not. C’est la vie.
I would love to hear all about it–in a thread devoted to discussing your dialect(s), or perhaps comparing many at once. When I’m looking to learn about unrelated things or ideas, efficient communication is key.
It is the present meaning, not the past, which is being used. To take offense or not based on a word far in silly’s past is to miss the intent entirely.
Now see, that was better-some speech mannerisms-“y’all” and such are fine. A little bit goes a long way.
And yes, that’s Pittsburghese. It could have come partly from West Virginia, some of it comes from Pennsylvania Dutch (from the early German settlers), and some of it from us Bohunkies. 
Spoken, Western PA dialect is very easy to understand, but written out, sometimes even I have trouble with it, and I’ve been around it all my life.
Sugaree, don’t you mean “Warshington”?
You know, I really wish people would stop implying that I’ve shown some strong aversion to casual language, or nonstandard dialects, or southerners, or something. As I’ve stated several times, it has nothing to do with that. But if it makes you feel more comfortable to assume that’s what I mean, then keep right on, even though I’ve said the opposite quite a few times.
You’ll never catch me defending the idolization of SAE, and if you’ve looked at any of my posts in threads on grammar issues, you’ll see that quickly. I’m just averse to bad writing. And I’m not the southerner who compared celestina’s clumsy attempts at dialect to Foghorn Leghorn either.
And yet you are. Linguistics is a descriptive science; it endeavors to discover and describe how people speak (although only one particular subfield deals with the particulars of dialect.)
The problem is the bit when you ask me to parse and analyze your dialect usage. As I’ve pointed out, linguistics is descriptive; it doesn’t really arm one with the tools to describe what makes a particular bit of speech ring false, since it’s based upon an analysis of what people say, and works to gain speech samples that are representative of the speaker’s normal usage. It doesn’t describe how a person “should” talk, which is what you’re asking me to do.
The reason I brought up linguistics is not to lend additional credence to my evaluation of your speech (it shouldn’t) - it’s just to try to convince you that I’m not linguistically prejudiced - evidently a useless proposition. I’ve spent a good deal of my life railing about attempts to “correct” what is, in actuality, quite correct nonstandard English. And I don’t like being lumped in with the fourth grade teacher “ain’t isn’t a word!” crowd.
The fact that you assume that any irritation with your writing style is based on ignorance or intolerance of dialectual differences is unfair. I wasn’t trying to be as mean as this thread (and, indeed, myself in later posts) ended up; I think that calling me “intolerant” because I don’t like your particular writing style is an unwarranted attack. Admittedly, I’m rather ignorant of the particular grammatical features that describe either southern American English or AAVE - that doesn’t mean I’m somehow prejudiced against them. You’re welcome to post in your natural, casual style, as most posters here do. It’s just the labored attempts to fit some “local color” in every other word you write that bug me. It’s not the "ain’t"s and "y’all"s in general.
Standard American English isn’t most people’s native dialect, and when I’m writing casually, I use “y’all” and “ain’t” the way I do when I talk. It’s the constant, overbearing attempts to work in some southernness that get on my nerves; “I do declare” is a bit of levity when used rarely, precisely because it’s something so rarely used in ordinary speech (and yes, I’ve known southerners before; y’all don’t talk that way most of the time.) It’s much less amusing when it’s repeated constantly.
I’m gay. I’m aware of the fact that I sound pretty damn gay when I talk. In fact, on occasion, I’ve inadvertently made roomfuls of people laugh their asses off at some of the gay-sounding things I say. But that doesn’t mean I should post in some irritating parody of “gay English” when I post here (interestingly, I’ve read some papers on the specifics of what linguistic features are associated with gay men in the United States. It’s interesting to read about - the particular feature that most identifies gay men’s speech is a tendency towards more open, distinct vowels.) I could describe everything as “faaabulous” or “dreadful” and fill everything I write with histrionic rapture or horror. Find my voice, and all. Stop limiting myself to trying to sound the way everyone else does! Reclaim my dialect’s rightful position!
I don’t. I use expressions like that as occasional bits of emphasis in what I write. Because I don’t want to sound like some saelig guy who feels the need to constantly call attention to just how damn GAY I am. There’s no reason to do so, and it would become irritating and tiresome very quickly.
I always kinda’ like it when I come across one of celestina’s posts. It feels jus’ like findin’ a restaurant in Ohio that serves sweet tea. Down home cookin’ in the far-off land of the SDMB.
Keep it up, C, you break the monotony.
I wasn’t attacking you, Excalibre, just expressing an opinion that differs from yours. You find celestina’s mode of communication irritating. I don’t. Tastes differ. I just part company with you about it being ‘bad writing’.
I do apologize for the Gaudere’s Law/‘piece/peace’ thing, though. It was a bit of surpassingly irrelevant silliness that just tickled my funny bone. It came off as much more of a cheap shot than I intended, after reading it later. That’s yet another peril with written communication, and I should have taken more thought.
This obviously bothers you, though you’ve made a remarkably civil case of it. The whole issue just strikes me much differently, though I’ll let you and celestina duke out the linguistic details. I doggedly crawled through the basic Anthro requirements for liguistics a few eons ago then promptly forgot them. It’s not a good memory.
‘Voice’ in writing doesn’t bother me as much as it does you. That very well may be a personal thing. It’s trickier to pick up on, especially on something so far-flung as a message board, but again: perceptions differ. The SDMB is pickier than most about clear communication but it’s still a heady cross between writing and speaking. It’s an extension of Judith Martin the journalist using a distinctive antique voice as Miss Manners to make a point. Using a specific voice can shade a point: something deliberately exaggerated just thaaat much, a sneaky deadpan flip-on-yer-ass means of saying something without making a formal whoop-de-doo of it. I’m really tired right now, but one SDMB counterpart that springs to mind was Dutch, very European Coldfire’s deft lapses into colloquial slacker/shitkicker 'Merkinisms. It wasn’t something fake or ‘bad’, just a method of injecting subtexts into the communication.
Just a sideways perspective.
Veb
Again, I don’t get why you’re making generalizations about what I must or must not like in writing. I certainly don’t see what evidence you have to suggest that I hate voice in writing - I think to be considered even competent, writing ought to have the author’s voice in it.
And were that celestina’s voice, I’d be cool with it. But it’s not plausible that she talks that way - if you can’t see how artificial her writing is here, I don’t know how to explain it. And it’s not artificial for a purpose, as in the ever-delightful prose of Miss Manners (I’m not being sarcastic; I love her columns. I even have some of her books.) celestina’s prose is grating precisely because it’s artificial, it’s not done in “tonic” doses to add a feel to her writing but rather constant (well, since she started doing it, at least) and it seems to serve no rhetorical purpose.
I’m not against voice. I’m not against any dialect of English, be it AAVE, southern American English, Indian English, or Singlish. I think they’re all delightful. I’m just against the poor execution thereof. Since writing isn’t a phonetic realization of speech (in any language, but probably less than most in English), you can’t portray accents (in the sense of the phonetic particularities of a region), or suprasegmental qualities like stress or pauses or the rhythms characteristic of different dialects, at least not well. You just can’t capture those things in writing, and so celestina instead overuses grammatical traits and expressions to the point that they seem bizarre and just utterly unlike the way she probably speaks. If she wrote the way she talked, using southern or AAVE words or expressions, it would be interesting. But she overuses them to the point of ridiculousness. That’s what’s annoying. Not ‘voice’.
Celestina,
I do agree that your writing is a bit annoying but being from the south it is a natural read. What I do not condone in any way is you and johanna trying to turn this otherwise constructive, yet out of context discussion into a racial thing - That makes you look stupid.
This sums up how I feel. I don’t mind dialect (hell, Huck Finn is one of my favorite books) at all, but Celestina’s posts feel like they’re overdoing it.
It’s kind of like many of the shop-at-home jewelry pieces. They want to look fancy and classy and “elegant”, and to do that, they put huge chunks of gemstones on them in all sorts of colors. You’ll have a ring that looks like a gumball is on your hand, in alternating green, pink, blue and yellow gemstone stripes. Or a pendant that’s covered in diamonds (CZ, what have you) and is about 5" in diameter. In trying to make sure they look “classy”, they end up doing the opposite and looking very cheap and trashy.
I’m not saying Celestina’s posting is trashy at all, just as an analogy for “tries to hard to be one thing and because of it, ends up looking like the exact opposite” (tries hard to look down-home and comforting, and ends up looking like a yankee who’s never had grits or sweet tea before).
Grar. “Tries too hard”, of course.
Celestina, I think that maybe it’s coming off as affected because you’re really making a concerted effort to reproduce your dialect patterns exactly the way you would be when you’re actually speaking. At least, that’s how it seems to me. And very few people actually do that on the boards, so it stands out.
I mean, I tend to drift into some nonstandard usage on the boards, and I don’t have an accent in real life that could be written out phonetically, but that doesn’t mean this is how I talk in real life. I mean, if you wanted a… You know, an example of how I might, you know, talk like as if I were actually talking, as opposed to, you know, typing… Dude… And I mean, it’s like no one actually, you know, would want to read it. I mean, just being so fragmented, and… you know… the continual effort to not say “Dude” all the time (and I mean, if you want to get into the whole “rad” thing… it’s weird… like I don’t know why I, you know, use it so much, but…)
Anyway, that’s how I talk. But it isn’t how I write. In fact, it’s kind of difficult for me to write all that out, even though it would be totally natural while I’m speaking. Certain amounts of it carry over - my inability to stop using the word “Dude,” my occasionally peculiar phrasing, and my bad, bad habit of starting sentences with conjunctions - but much of it goes away. For example, I write in complete sentences. I don’t use “you know” and “I mean” quite so often. I drop those things in writing because it feels natural to do so, and forced to include them. It seems to me that most people drop a lot of their verbal tics in writing. So for you to appear to be making an effort to include your tics makes them seem affected. Perhaps it’s totally natural for you to write in the vernacular. But it isn’t for me. I daresay it’s not natural for Excalibre, either. And that’s why it can seem affected.
All that said - if that’s your thing, then have fun doing it. Just recognize that you may put off some of us who have a more clear separation between written English and verbal English than you do. Not because we don’t like you, not because we think you’re stupid, but because we don’t switch back and forth as easily as you appear to.