# It's "needs washed"!!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 25, 2009, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575 "2009-08-25T00:16:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/181 "2009-08-31T22:01:58Z")
> [@Algorithm](#): > > My point is, teaching language to children is necessarily proscriptive, because when the message is “say this this specific way”, one is implying that is the “correct” way to say it. I’m not sure kids at the language-learning age have much capacity for distinguishing between correct/incorrect vs. standard/nonstandard. But they can distinguish between contexts. Take a hypothetical kid who’s got family in Massachusetts and in Alabama and shuffles between them regularly. It wouldn’t take much for the kid to pick up both dialects, but only use the one appropriate to whichever region he’s in. He’d still be thinking about it in terms of correct/not correct, as in it’s not correct to sound like he’s from Massachusetts while he’s in Alabama, but we’re still dealing with a situation in which two dialects are valid, it’s only the context that matters. Course, this argument is clearer when we’re talking about two languages, not just two dialects, but it’s only a matter of degree. I grew up in California and Arizona but my mother’s side of the family is from Florida, so I can switch easily between west coast and Southern dialects pretty simply (although most people can, I think). Still, I suspect we’re somewhat talking past each other here. You said that the kid needs to learn how to talk to other people, but you then mention a 4 year old. 4 year olds learn how to talk to other people by imitating them and absorbing the underlying rules of speech. By the time they reach a point where they have to learn how to deal with society at large, they’re old enough to understand the difference between what they speak at home and standard English. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/182 "2009-08-31T22:51:22Z")
> [@Algorithm](#): > > My point is, teaching language to children is necessarily proscriptive, because when the message is “say this this specific way”, one is implying that is the “correct” way to say it. I’m not sure kids at the language-learning age have much capacity for distinguishing between correct/incorrect vs. standard/nonstandard. And yet children who grow up in bilingual environments don’t typically, say, mistakenly produce an utterance in Language A when they are conversing in Language B (unless they are deliberately code-switching). I know we all speak a language, but the enterprise is far more protean and complex than most lay linguists seem to realize. I’m not saying that everyone should be up-to-date on the latest linguistics-science-based pedagogy (although we _might_ expect this from people whose job it is to teach children language skills), but the lot of you look pretty foolish by controverting **SFG** ’s very conventional linguistic theses with _long discredited_ homespun theories of human language acquisition, use, and change. ---
**Author:** ![Algorithm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/algorithm/32/12204_2.png) [@Algorithm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algorithm)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/183 "2009-08-31T23:14:12Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Still, I suspect we’re somewhat talking past each other here. Probably. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/184 "2009-09-01T03:47:52Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > But we’re not teaching “MUSE will help you succeed,” we’re teaching “MUSE is objectively right and NMUSE dialects are objectively wrong.” \*\*That \*\*is my objection. What you mean “we,” kemosabe? I’m not teaching that. If you’re thinking of the average 21st century grammar teacher as some sort of uptight snoot who gets her panties in a twist when people split infinitives, you’re sadly mistaken. The people who would think the way you describe are very likely not language professionals, and they are very very likely not working with students who have nonstandard dialects. I won’t deny there are still a few dinosaurs roaming the earth, but they are not the majority. Most language arts teachers that work in middle school or higher are well aware of the lingustic validity of alternative dialects; but it’s irrelevant to the task of teaching them MUSE. If we say that a given construction is “incorrect,” we know perfectly well that what we really mean is “incorrect in MUSE.” We don’t go around constantly making that distinction, because frankly it’s flipping obvious. Nobody needs a teacher to tell them it’s okay to say “ain’t” in casual conversation. It’s pretty well understood by all concerned that what you’re learning in school is formal English, for use in school/work, etc. > [@](#): > > Just the sample you quoted made me wanna punch the guy in the face, with that asinine boy-in-a-skirt example. So arguments you dislike make you feel violent? You may want to think about this. > [@](#): > > The listener is equally responsible as the speaker. Not necessarily. The responsibility rests on whoever wants to communicate. The burden is mutual only if both sides have equal desire to communicate. If A wants/needs to communicate with B, but B has no such desire (or less of one), A is going to have much more of a burden than B, especially if B can communicate easily with C, D, and E. Again, you can wish that it shouldn’t be that way, and I suppose it’d be nice to live in a world where everyone cared equally about everything everyone else said, but life simply isn’t fair like that. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/185 "2009-09-01T14:51:46Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > Shot with Guns You can’t even be bothered to get my name right, and you expect me to believe you’re actually reading anything in this thread? > [@](#): > > You go ahead and think that, but I don’t have the time or energy to repeat myself ad nauseum, only to have you completely ignore everything I’ve said to make your own point again. Translation: SFG has raised a bunch of specific objections to my arguments, and I can’t be bothered to actually refute them. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/186 "2009-09-01T18:52:39Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > You can’t even be bothered to get my name right, and you expect me to believe you’re actually reading anything in this thread? :rolleyes: I made a mistake. Mea culpa. By all means, do use it as a way to make a personal attack. > [@](#): > > Translation: SFG has raised a bunch of specific objections to my arguments, and I can’t be bothered to actually refute them. :rolleyes: If that’s your translation of what I wrote, then I have to believe you aren’t actually reading anything in this thread either. I think this is pretty close to the truth, since both furt and I have tried to interact with your stance, but you just repeat your line over and over about right and wrong and racism, without taking into account anything anyone else is saying. You’re not worth talking to. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/187 "2009-09-02T19:03:42Z")
If I’m repeating myself, it’s because my questions still aren’t getting answered. Also, because there are people here who stating the linguistics equivalent of, “But the sky is orange!” when I’m trying to state that the sky is, in fact, blue. ---
**Author:** ![Alastair\_Moonsong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3e96dc/32.png) [@Alastair\_Moonsong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alastair_Moonsong)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/188 "2009-09-02T19:23:04Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Everyone I work with talks like that. It is driving me insane. Except they add an extra layer to the fun by making it into “needs warshed”. > > Shoot me. I knew when I read this, without looking to your Location tag, that you lived within an hour of me. So hey there. Oh, and the Baltimoron tendency to say “Warsh” makes me want to cry tears of blood and eviscerate people. It’s one thing to mispronounce a word because of the way the letters in it are arranged; it’s something else entirely to mispronounce a word in a way that should be rendered impossible simply by virtue of said word’s constituent letters. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/189 "2009-09-02T20:11:30Z")
> [@Alastair\_Moonsong](#): > > Oh, and the Baltimoron tendency to say “Warsh” makes me want to cry tears of blood and eviscerate people. It’s one thing to \*\*mispronounce \*\*a word because of the way the letters in it are arranged; it’s something else entirely to \*\*mispronounce \*\*a word in a way that should be rendered impossible simply by virtue of said word’s constituent letters. Emphasis added. And people wonder why I have to keep repeating basic linguistic concepts in this thread? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/190 "2009-09-02T20:34:09Z")
> [@Alastair\_Moonsong](#): > > it’s something else entirely to mispronounce a word in a way that should be rendered impossible simply by virtue of said word’s constituent letters. I **know** , **right**? When I hear **people** in any part of the **nation** speak like that I just **laugh**. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/191 "2009-09-02T21:46:19Z")
**Bosstone** , high-five. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/192 "2009-10-20T14:47:04Z")
Okay SFG, how’s this… Call the yinz/needs washed dialect PD (for Pittsburgh dialect). I think MUSE is right and PD and AAVE are wrong! Go ahead say it - I’m a racist against Pittsburghers (or whatever they call themselves.) See how stupid your racist claims sound now? I don’t give a damn who does the saying, I care about about how clear the ideas are put across. Language has evolved nuances, I guess you know that. Nuances that help give more information, make things more clear. It’s why we have so many words for shades of colors. Your claim that she hat is as clear as her hat is as false as making up a new word that means crimson. In other words it adds nothing to the language, and in fact detracts from it. It’s the equivalent of one of those letter-insertion code languages kids make up like Uppy-Duppy or Pig-Latin. It’s like creating a deliberate alternate to confuse others, or keep them from understanding what’s being said. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/193 "2009-10-20T15:29:51Z")
Go. Take. A. Basic. Course. In. Linguistics. Seriously, people. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/194 "2009-10-20T15:54:35Z")
We’re seriously resurrecting this? The contention that there is only one correct english dialect is as nonsensical as insisting that there is only one correct language. English is just better than Spanish, OK? People who speak Spanish are doing it wrong. It’s practically child abuse not to correct a child who says “casa” when they should say “house”. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/195 "2009-10-20T16:52:34Z")
I’m going to wear a skirt tomorrow… but I’ll refer to it as pants! Hah! Can’t fuck with me _now_, can you? Hoisted on your own petard, descriptivists! Or prescriptivists. Fuck, which side was I on? ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/196 "2009-10-20T17:56:14Z")
I guess my brand of sarcasm is not clear. And this was resurrected because I was pointed to this thread yesterday by someone in another thread. I was more taking a shot at the “you must be a racist if you think AAVE is wrong” mindset. I was pointing out that a person could think PD (Pittsburgh dialect) is wrong too. But for some reason that’s not racist but disliking AAVE is - even though someone might feel this way against both for the same reason - they do not convey clear meaning to that person. SFG - you do yourself and you argument a big disservice when you lob the racist word into this discussion. I’ve just shown how someone can think multiple dialects are wrong because of clarity issues - this dispels the notion of racism since not all the disliked dialects are “race based”. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/197 "2009-10-20T18:06:43Z")
Thanks for looking at other people’s characterizations of my arguments, instead of the arguments themselves. Discrimination against dialects is always on the basis of \*\*who is speaking \*\*and not on the basis of the **objective linguistic merits** of the dialect in question. Whether this is racism, classism, etc., **will depend on the dialect in question**. In the case of AAVE, I said that this is one of the few areas where racism is still publicly acceptable. Racism is, by definition, treating people differently because of their race. AAVE is \*\*no less grammatical \*\*than MUSE: the \*\*only \*\*distinction is that AAVE is primarily spoken by Black Americans. So, when discrimination occurs only on the basis of race, what is it we call that, again? Oh, right: **racism**. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/198 "2009-10-20T18:11:28Z")
I hold equal disdain for pretty much all regional dialects. What does that make me? ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/199 "2009-10-20T18:13:28Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I hold equal disdain for pretty much all regional dialects. What does that make me? A self-hater, a hypocrite, or just plain ignorant. (News flash: you speak a dialect!) ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575/200 "2009-10-20T18:26:19Z")
See you just lost me again. Why is it “wrong” to have a disdain for other dialects. If I were British and spoke in a near received pronunciation (I know it is a manufactured dialect), why would it be wrong if I disliked Cockney rhyming slang? That’s another one of those “you have to be in the club to understand” dialects. I must draw this distinction, that a dialect that willfully tries to obfuscate meaning to outsiders does not deserve the same considerations as a dialect that perhaps just has a vowel shift. And again, why can’t one dislike such a dialect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-needs-washed/507575.md?page=11)