You ain't never heard me speak, I gather.

The BBQ Pit
121

Some people may feel this way, but I don’t think that all do.

That’s wrong, I agree. “Colorful” speech is what gives spice to life, and I don’t see why people want to squelch that. However, I believe that some people are correcting others because they are concerned that they don’t know how to speak any other way. And as discussed before, there are perils in never speaking any other way, or never being aware (being oblivious) that there are times when it is better to speak a different way.

Fine, we’re in agreement then. It is good to learn how to speak differently, (so they can “switch back and forth”) and if they refuse to do so, they do at their own peril.

If they cannot then something is amiss. If they will not (even for certain circumstances) then something is amiss. Not that they are stupid, but something is amiss.

Actually, it does to a certain extent. Some people swear constantly—it’s part of their dialect. If they cannot or will not stop swearing, even in church, then something is amiss. If they cannot or will not behave in a professional manner at the appropriate time, something is amiss.

122

Well, calling people stupid or insisting that they’re wrong when they aren’t isn’t likely to encourage learning or change. It’s the calling people stupid bit that Biggirl was Pitting.

*And, as I’ve said, very often the thing that is amiss is that people from outside their community keep trying to get them to admit that their native dialect is “wrong” and agree that SAE is the only “proper English”.

To run with the clothing analogy, let’s make non-SAE English dialects some sort of clothing not common at school or work in the US, but both traditional and popular within a certain minority population. It could be anything from a sari to a cowboy hat and boots.

There are many reasons why these clothes might not be acceptable in school or work situations. They may be a violation of the dress code. They may be a safety hazard. They may interfere with the individual’s ability to perform the required tasks, or interfere with someone else’s work. (A big cowboy hat could block the view of the student sitting behind you!) They may just not fit the image the company wants to project.

There’s nothing wrong with saying “I’m sorry Kusum, but that sari could get caught in the machinery. You’ll have to wear something else to work.” There’s nothing objectionable in “Johnny, our dress code doesn’t allow hats. You need to put that away, you can get it after class.” Some forms of clothing are inappropriate or unacceptable in some situations, and people need to know that and deal with it.

However, “Kusum, that’s not even proper clothing. You can’t come to the office draped in a big sheet. I don’t know what you people do at home, but around here we wear real clothes” is pretty insulting. So is “Johnny, only stupid boys wear cowboy hats. You’ve got to stop wearing that if you ever want to be successful. Have you ever seen a brain surgeon wearing a cowboy hat?”

If people are faced with the choice between selling out their heritage by agreeing that it’s wrong/bad/stupid or telling the rest of the world to go hang while they stick to the ways they’re familiar with, a lot of people are going to choose the latter. Even if it shuts them out of career opportunities or high society. They’re not stupid and they’re not oblivious. They have been faced with an unfair choice and taken the option that doesn’t require them to take sides against their own community.

That’s the way language choice is presented to a lot of non-SAE speakers. It’s the way it’s been portrayed by many posters in this thread – some grammatical constructions are “just wrong”, even if they are common and acceptable in some minority dialect, because there’s no “correct” way to speak English other than SAE.

This attitude is not merely one without any basis in linguistics, it’s prejudiced and unhelpful. It does little to encourage the use of SAE, and much to promote mistrust of SAE and SAE speakers.

123

I agree that calling them stupid is terribly inappropriate. Being accustomed to speaking a certain way isn’t stupid. Being unable or unwilling to adapt themselves—and instead choosing to speak in a way that is detrimental to them—that may be a stupid choice.

I don’t disagree that calling them stupid is over the top. It’s not only incorrect, it’s mean-spirited.

And I think some here are saying that about language. But we’re being told that somehow, it’s unreasonable to expect the person to adapt their language for certain circumstances. But I don’t see how it’s unreasonable. For the same reason that it’s not unreasonable to expect a usually profane person to not cuss in church. People can control how they speak if they really want to.

And that’s short-sighted of them. And I don’t think that everyone does that. Some people take pains to learn to speak “proper” English, precisely because they know it will help them in the long run. Someone who chooses not to is, in a way, cutting off their nose to spite their face. It’s completely understandable to not want to change just to placate or satisfy assholes, and I wouldn’t expect a person to adapt the way they speak if satisfying assholes was the sole reason for doing so. But when the speaker themselves can see how it is going to help them in the long run—benefit them to have more options—but they refuse to do it, just to prove a point, who suffers? They do. Only they do.

That’s all true. But it doesn’t change the fact that some people see past the bullshit and learn to switch “back and forth.” Some of them are even mocked for it, and told that they are “selling out.” How is this helpful?

124

As you have pointed out in countless threads, repeatedly asserting a point without providing the slightest evidence of its factuality does not make it true. This is what you have done and it is why nobody has agreed with you. While we have provided only anecdotal evidence to the contrary it is still more than you have provided to support your statement.

125

Being told that by whom? Not me. Not the OP. As far as I can tell, no one in this thread has ever expressed such an idea. I can’t think offhand that I’ve ever heard anyone express such an idea in my whole life, and this is a field I have some interest and experience in.

Yet somehow whenever I try to explain that people aren’t stupid because they speak a different dialect, and that this supposed “wrong” grammar is a sign of a legitimate different dialect, someone wants to come back with this “So you’re saying it’s okay to swear in church, or wear flip-flops to work?” business.

126

And I have withdrawn my assertion, so what is your point?

127

It was just one last dig, Tom, since your withdrawal was couched in such a hurt, but unrepentant, tone, like a YEC on his way back to the Left Behind board. “OK. I am obviously not going to persuade anyone who believes otherwise…” is no reflection on our beliefs but on your own inability to persuade because you provided no proof but your own assertion. “My post is my cite,” didn’t work for Aldebaran, for whom we didn’t have the highest expectations, and won’t work at all for you, especially because you are YOU. You have long set the standard for quality debate here and to have you drop in my lap proof that you are, indeed, human, well, I couldn’t resist slapping you around a bit, especially since I usually find myself as ignored as Rilchiam. :smiley:

128

OK. Just checking.

129

I will just have to say, that someone born and raised in the sort of community that fosters this notion, that this is perhaps the most destructive attitude that I have in young people of minority ethnicities and subcultures. It might be flippant, but I recommend you check out Chapelle Show’s ‘When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong.’

There’s nothing glamorous or noble about sacrificing social and economic success in order to maintain your unique grammar construction. Culture is much deeper than grammar- you can resist ‘selling out’ in 1000 other ways and still ‘fit in’ where corporate culture is concerned.

Sorry. Just a pet peeve of mine.

As for not making people feel stupid, I agree. However, that’s a matter of tactics rather than philosophy. It’s like impressing on a child the need to go to college when his parents have not. You don’t want to dump on the parents for not having gone, but you do want to ‘break the cycle.’

130

Yes, it can be destructive. But it’s not an incomprehensible choice. It may often be a very poor choice, but it’s not necessarily the result of obliviousness or sheer stupidity. You probably understood that already, but other posters in this thread obviously did not.

People make bad decisions all the time without truly being stupid or ignorant.

*True enough, but this cuts both ways. There’s nothing admirable about refusing to condescend to comprehend other people’s dialects or demanding that everyone speak to you in your own dialect, yet plenty of SAE speakers are happy to do that.

Virtually all native speakers of non-SAE English dialects can understand SAE, whether or not they can speak it. The inverse is not always true. SAE speakers who cannot or will not understand other American English dialects are cutting themselves off from communication with huge groups of people. In some fields this could be a barrier to success, and it certainly limits the social circles one can move in.

*Someone could hold the belief that all non-SAE dialects are merely perversions of “proper” grammar without doing anything to make non-SAE speakers feel stupid…but they’d still be factually wrong even if their tactics weren’t objectionable.

131

That seems the way it should be, given that, across just the continental US, there are probably several hundred dialects with varying degrees of similarity with SAE. If you live in a major urban area, you might encounter quite a few of these daily, but it takes time, effort, and a certain amount of ‘immersion’ to comprehend it. Expecting that of everyone seems silly, especially when there already exists a common ground.

I don’t think that there is anything morally wrong with subculture jargon, geographical or ethnic dialects, etc. But the language of formal education and business are both SAE, and I don’t see how reverting to a ‘balkanization of language’ is in any way an improvement.

132

Not much, though. American English dialects vary remarkably little compared to dialects in other countries, including good ol’ English-speaking England. It should take minimal effort for an SAE speaker to understand a cashier who says “You was at pump six?” or “Watchoo nee’?” There may be a few people who genuinely can’t do this, but I’m inclined to believe that most who make that claim simply refuse to understand dialects that they consider “incorrect” or “inferior”.

*I don’t think it’s at all silly to expect people to make some attempt to comprehend the local dialect if they live or work in a community where SAE is not the standard for ordinary conversation.

133

And nobody here has said that. Nor have they said that using a dialect while among other speakers of that dialect is stupid, though you have several times suggested they did. What others have said is similar to what you said in your previous post, that speaking a dialect in an inappropriate situation, as in a job interview, is a bad decision. You are seeing major disagreement where there is, at most, disagreement on the details; in that particular case some see that bad decision as indicating the possibility that the speaker is stupid while you see only that he lacks judgement. As neither stupidity nor poor judgement are qualities looked for in a future employee, either way he does not get the job so we are left with a difference without a distinction.

134

Did you not read the OP?

135

Not since last week. (re-reading the OP and links) Okay, nobody who isn’t exhibiting a preference for billy goat meat has said that and I repeat that NOBODY here in this thread has said that. Primarily referring to Lamia’s pointless back and forths with Yosemite.

136

At least RECENTLY in this thread.

137

True dat.

138

The subject of this thread is people who say that others are stupid, based solely on their dialect. That’s the attitude that’s being Pitted. If you don’t want to defend that side, what do you have to argue about? I do not believe anyone has attempted to criticize the perfectly reasonable attitude that a certain dialect might not be the best choice in a given situation.

I know that I have not. I wish certain posters would stop pretending that I have, not least of all because it leads to nothing but the sort of pointless back-and-forth that bores everyone. It isn’t amusing for me to keep finding new ways to say “No I didn’t!”

The point I stepped into this thread to address was the repeated claim in this thread that certain grammatical structures found in non-SAE dialects are “incorrect” or “bad grammar”. They are not. The “you was” construction may be socially unacceptable in certain contexts, but it is not wrong in dialects that use this construction. (It might be wrong in SAE, but that’s why you don’t hear people speaking SAE use it.) To claim otherwise is factually incorrect. It is a position that has no basis in linguistics at all.

*I am in major disagreement with anyone who says that particular constructions are “just plain wrong” when they are merely features of a different dialect.

No I do not, because speaking in a non-SAE dialect is not always a bad decision. It’s often a completely neutral decision, and in some cases may actually be the most astute choice of speaking styles. There are plenty of situations in which people will respond more favorably to someone who doesn’t sound like a newscaster. Heck, not sounding too “proper” seems to help if you want to be President of the United States, and you can’t shoot much higher than that.

Even in situations where the use of non-SAE dialects provokes a negative reaction, the speaker may not have any reason to care. Some hoity-toity jerk may get upset that they dared say “you was” instead of “you were”, but so what? It would be rare for this to lead to any real consequences for the speaker.

In cases where poor dialect choice is the only thing stopping the speaker from achieving some goal then yes, it’s a sign of poor judgement. But how often does this happen? People are usually pretty good at adapting to social expectations. Most who cannot or will not speak SAE either do not aspire to any position where this would be necessary or live in a region where it is no barrier to success.

139

Ok, I guess it’s time for me to open up a can of holier-than-thou.

Obviously, you don’t know the definition of “grammatically incorrect”. This makes you ignorant, right?

No, it doesn’t.

In my circles, only constructions such as “This day, I read newspaper, yes” are grammatically incorrect. They truly mark a speaker as not understanding what’s allowable in English. And I have the sheepskins and the CV, so that makes me the arbiter of what’s right, right?

Of course not.

But your insistence that the rules taught in schools for academic papers should define what is generically “correct”, even in spoken English, is a very similar argument.

There are a lot of standards I learned for schoolwork which I now totally disregard, or can’t recall.

The English language is my living, and has been for years. I’ve taught college-level English. I now make my living as a writer and proofreader. Trust me, I’m not some liberal “it’s-all-good” relativist. I taught my students standard edited English and demanded that they use it in their assignments.

But I never believed that the rules of the classroom somehow extended to all of life.

I think everyone is agreed that knowing the standard academic dialect is a good thing. What’s difficult to understand is how intelligible English which, as you admit, is acceptable within a dialect can somehow be “wrong” or “grammatically incorrect” because it isn’t allowed in student papers.

140

Preach it, brother. :wink:

As an EFL teacher, I had a lot of real grammar errors to correct. “Yesterday I go to shopping” was one that came up all the time. Lower-level EFL students are still struggling with the basics of a foreign grammar. They often mistakenly use the rules of their native language, forget how to conjugate irregular verbs, and that sort of thing.

More advanced students didn’t often make true grammar mistakes. With them, I sometimes faced a different problem – unteaching “grammar book English” that sounded ridiculous in conversation. Some of the conversational English textbooks have whole lessons devoted to this subject.

Older students who’d been drilled in formal English grammar as schoolkids sometimes used constructions that I’d never heard before, and couldn’t even remember seeing in writing. (“There are a rabbit and two squirrels in the yard.”) I taught one elderly gentleman who was retired from a government agency that I understood to be the Japanese equivelant of the CIA. Everything he said in English sounded like a diplomatic letter. My job was to get him not to sound like that. My students were always keen to know how native English speakers would really phrase things, because they understood there was a big difference between grammar book English and ordinary conversational English.

Learning the rules is an important part of mastering any language…but communication is not about just following an arbitrary set of rules.