Wilson and other grammarians, have at it! Click inside!

[devildeac]

The shoe doesn't fit in the least.

A lot of people who know very little about language shoot their mouths off about it just because they know that we have different orthographic conventions for "your and "you're." This doesn't mean they have much metalinguistic knowledge at all. They merely like to act superior to other people, without having any knowledge of their own about how language actually works. This happens in every culture; the upper middle class of the dominant group (white people, in ours) conflate writing with their own oral usage, and their own oral usage with a socially constructed innerrancy that has nothing to do with how language actually works.

Well, thanks for the cold shower, throaty. I frankly don't appreciate some of your above insinuations, and I submit that my "metalinguistic knowledge" is actually pretty darned good, thank you very much. As for your pronunciations of people "liking to act superior to other people," well, that's just fairly dripping with irony.
Remind us again why you keep coming back here with shit like this?

Here we go again. How about if you two take this to PM?

[Ima Facultiwyfe]

Here we go again. How about if you two take this to PM?

Aw, do they have to, DD? They've sent me to the dictionary three times already.
Love, Ima

[throatybeard]

I really don't even know what you're talking about, DevilDeac, suggesting PM. This has nothing to do with this site and everything to do with language.

I am a linguist. That is my profession. I have a PhD in this. Lots of people all over the internet think they're "grammarians" despite only having mastered a handful of prescriptive style directives, like "double negatives are bad, m'kay." This doesn't mean they know anything about how morphosyntax actually works.

When I say "acting superior" I am talking about macro-social practices, in which [in our culture] White middle class people conflate their own speech with some Chicago Manual of Style directives that make them feel superior to people who speak ethnic Englishes (AfAM English, Chicano English) or regional Englishes (US South, Newfoundland, &c). This is an extremely well-documented phenomenon. In fact, it's the chief problem we struggle again in language prejudice and language discrimination.

[CathyCA]

I really don't even know what you're talking about, DevilDeac, suggesting PM. This has nothing to do with this site and everything to do with language.

I am a linguist. That is my profession. I have a PhD in this. Lots of people all over the internet think they're "grammarians" despite only having mastered a handful of prescriptive style directives, like "double negatives are bad, m'kay." This doesn't mean they know anything about how morphosyntax actually works.

When I say "acting superior" I am talking about macro-social practices, in which [in our culture] White middle class people conflate their own speech with some Chicago Manual of Style directives that make them feel superior to people who speak ethnic Englishes (AfAM English, Chicano English) or regional Englishes (US South, Newfoundland, &c). This is an extremely well-documented phenomenon. In fact, it's the chief problem we struggle again in language prejudice and language discrimination.

Well, Throaty, you've come in to my thread, but you haven't remarked on the subject at all. You have engaged my friend in an immature pissing match.

What say you re my kid's 7th grade teacher's writings? Should I accept what she's written simply because it's some type of acceptable regional English?

If this woman were teaching your kid, would you care? If this woman were teaching your potential students, would you be concerned?

[Lavabe]

The shoe doesn't fit in the least.

A lot of people who know very little about language shoot their mouths off about it just because they know that we have different orthographic conventions for "your and "you're." This doesn't mean they have much metalinguistic knowledge at all. They merely like to act superior to other people, without having any knowledge of their own about how language actually works. This happens in every culture; the upper middle class of the dominant group (white people, in ours) conflate writing with their own oral usage, and their own oral usage with a socially constructed innerrancy that has nothing to do with how language actually works.

[red large emphasis mine]

As an anthropologist, I am not really sure that I'd go so far as to say EVERY, and I am unsure that I'd say "upper middle class of the dominant group," as not too many countries in the developing world have large enough portions of this socioeconomic class. For example, I don't believe I've seen this with the click languages and with the versions of Malagasy I deal with. For that matter, is that really the case throughout urban AND rural India, China, and Indonesia? I am also puzzled with your use of dominance, as "dominant group" is hard to assess in many places. I'd really not want to see a western model of "dominance" used to discuss people who don't live in such a system.

[CathyCA]

CathyCA, any updates?

"We" have a 1000 word report due on Thursday. My English-teacher-Mom and I will proofread this thing with a fine-toothed comb. It WILL be a masterpiece, so we'll be prepared for the teacher's comments.

OOOOOh, this IS getting GOOD! How long do you think we'll have to wait for the grade to come back?
Love, Ima
PS No word back from the principal?

Ima and Tilly, thanks for asking. I got a note from the principal telling me that she's going to handle it confidentially with the teacher. This paper will be the first "test" in our evaluation of how things are going.

Interestingly, my kid loves the class and the reading selections the teacher has assigned. I've never heard of some of these authors, so I've been doing a lot of online research lately in order to keep up.

[CameronBornAndBred]

The shoe doesn't fit in the least.

A lot of people who know very little about language shoot their mouths off about it just because they know that we have different orthographic conventions for "your and "you're." This doesn't mean they have much metalinguistic knowledge at all. They merely like to act superior to other people, without having any knowledge of their own about how language actually works. This happens in every culture; the upper middle class of the dominant group (white people, in ours) conflate writing with their own oral usage, and their own oral usage with a socially constructed innerrancy that has nothing to do with how language actually works.

I'm gonna throw my at this and then drop it. I don't see anything wrong with this post. It might be opinionated, but 90% of all posts are, and I don't think it's "insinuating" to any one person. Hell I was the one who mispelled the word originally, and I wasn't offended by being corrected the first time. As for the post itself, if you can take it for not being anything other than opinion it is even informative. Now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[throatybeard]

If this woman were teaching your kid, would you care? If this woman were teaching your potential students, would you be concerned?

Not particularly, no. I'm perfectly capable of telling my kid where an apostrophe does or doesn't go in English orthography. As you seem to be yourself. School teachers screw some things up. That fact doesn't inspire me to moral outrage or letter-writing campaigns.


Lav--there's still language variation in every language and there are still asymmetrical power relationships in [almost] every culture, even when power is constructed in different ways from cultures with roots in Western Europe. I was explaining things in a Western way because this is a Western audience.

The Austronesian languages are wild, crazy cool. Tell me how that VOS word order is working out for you.

Incidentally, re: Madagascar, I'm sure you know this, but I was gobsmacked recently when I learned that the Nazis' earlier plan was to deport all the Jews to Madagascar. I had no idea--this bit doesn't make it into garden-variety accounts in the US of the Holocaust, at least not any of the ones I've been exposed to. (I've never been to the DC Holocaust museum--maybe they have something on it there). Apparently this was plan A, and then the Nazis had their hands full with the English in 1940, so they scuttled the plan and moved onto their even more heinous ones. So there I was, contemplating the unfulfilled possibility of a Madagascar full of indigenous people, and European Jews. How odd.

[Lavabe]

Lav--there's still language variation in every language and there are still asymmetrical power relationships in [almost] every culture, even when power is constructed in different ways from cultures with roots in Western Europe. I was explaining things in a Western way because this is a Western audience.

The Austronesian languages are wild, crazy cool. Tell me how that VOS word order is working out for you.

Incidentally, re: Madagascar, I'm sure you know this, but I was gobsmacked recently when I learned that the Nazis' earlier plan was to deport all the Jews to Madagascar. I had no idea--this bit doesn't make it into garden-variety accounts in the US of the Holocaust, at least not any of the ones I've been exposed to. (I've never been to the DC Holocaust museum--maybe they have something on it there). Apparently this was plan A, and then the Nazis had their hands full with the English in 1940, so they scuttled the plan and moved onto their even more heinous ones. So there I was, contemplating the unfulfilled possibility of a Madagascar full of indigenous people, and European Jews. How odd.

I still don't get the sentences sans verbs in Malagasy. To use a verb in some cases would be a great insult. The gut honest feeling with me is that it would take a solid six months to speak Malagasy. I can understand half of it.

POWER relations versus dominance actually DO matter, and I was glad to see you shift from "dominance."

The Malagasy relationship with Israel and Judaism IS quite extraordinary.

[windsor]

Serious question Throaty...

Are there 'rights and wrongs' then or just style directives and ethnic differences? Are the 'rights' more basic than we (middle class white folk) think - limited perhaps to the structural level?


I spoke (as a child) Hungarian...and if my memory serves that verb placement was pretty liberal - using Hungarian structure for english would sound very 'wrong'

damn I'm glad I'm a geek not a English teacher.

[CathyCA]

If this woman were teaching your kid, would you care? If this woman were teaching your potential students, would you be concerned?

Not particularly, no. I'm perfectly capable of telling my kid where an apostrophe does or doesn't go in English orthography. As you seem to be yourself. School teachers screw some things up. That fact doesn't inspire me to moral outrage or letter-writing campaigns.

I think my kid's teacher has screwed up more than a few things.

I decided to write the one letter (it's not a campaign) before the first encounter with the teacher, so that my concerns were documented and not dismissed by the administration as a complaint by a parent whose kid got a poor grade.

I don't know if I'd call my feelings moral outrage--that sounds a tad dramatic, but I am concerned about my kid and the two hours each day that this teacher gets to spend with him and his small section of bright classmates. My mom and I are spending a lot of time "homeschooling" to make sure that this teacher isn't exercising too much influence over my kid's understanding of the English language. I would rather spend that time enhancing his understanding of the curriculum, rather than remediating it.

[windsor]

I think my kid's teacher has screwed up more than a few things.

I decided to write the one letter (it's not a campaign) before the first encounter with the teacher, so that my concerns were documented and not dismissed by the administration as a complaint by a parent whose kid got a poor grade.

I don't know if I'd call my feelings moral outrage--that sounds a tad dramatic, but I am concerned about my kid and the two hours each day that this teacher gets to spend with him and his small section of bright classmates. My mom and I are spending a lot of time "homeschooling" to make sure that this teacher isn't exercising too much influence over my kid's understanding of the English language. I would rather spend that time enhancing his understanding of the curriculum, rather than remediating it.

I had to do something similar with one of my daughter's math teachers...on multiple occassions she got formulas wrong. Really wrong. In fact at open house she had on her bulletin board a lovely graphic of a cone, with the formula to find the volme next to it...unfortunatley the formula was for the volume of cylinder. I mentioned it (during the class change over so as not to embarass her) she argued that the formula was correct - I had to grab a text book and show her she was wrong. I had a conversation with the principal who had a conversation with her - and after that everything I saw was correct...but I spent the whole year double checking everything my daughter did in that class.

I'm married to a teacher - of course teachers make the occassional mistake...but I expect at least a working knowledge of the subject they are teaching! Mr. Windsor has been drafted to teach 'out of field' from time to time...resulting in frantic cramming on his part to make sure he KNOWS the material. (Last year he taught Law on two weeks notice - lucky for him at the middle school level it was pretty basic stuff)

[Ima Facultiwyfe]

Hooray for you, Cath. He's a lucky kid to have you for a mom. And the rest of the kids are lucky to have you around to go to bat for them. Teachers don't have to know everything, but we should be able to demand they have working knowledge of their own areas of "expertise".

This has gone on forever. An early memory of mine is of my mother being dumfounded when we came home and told her our sixth grade teacher had given us the example of a long A by using the word "hammer". He said it was a long A because we say ham'-mer....rather than ham-mer'. She went ballistic.
Love, Ima

[cl15876]

Hooray for you, Cath. He's a lucky kid to have you for a mom. And the rest of the kids are lucky to have you around to go to bat for them. Teachers don't have to know everything, but we should be able to demand they have working knowledge of their own areas of "expertise".

I second that!!!!! I've seen you in action and the attention now will result in huge rewards later!!!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!! You keep doing what you're doing!!!!!

This has gone on forever. An early memory of mine is of my mother being dumfounded when we came home and told her our sixth grade teacher had given us the example of a long A by using the word "hammer". He said it was a long A because we say ham'-mer....rather than ham-mer'. She went ballistic.
Love, Ima

Funny as hell!!!! I like grEEn bEans and tEa with my HAM!!!!!

[DukieInKansas]

If this woman were teaching your kid, would you care? If this woman were teaching your potential students, would you be concerned?

Not particularly, no. I'm perfectly capable of telling my kid where an apostrophe does or doesn't go in English orthography. As you seem to be yourself. School teachers screw some things up. That fact doesn't inspire me to moral outrage or letter-writing campaigns.

snip

I just had to chime in. Your child, and CathyCA's child, are fortunate that they have a parent that can help them with grammar. What about the children in the class that don't have that advantage? I would expect the teacher in a language arts class to have a better grasp of the written word. If nothing else, the teacher should know the difference between students and student's. If the math or science teacher wrote this, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much.

My favorite story of teacher errors - my sister's either 4th or 5th grade teacher kept trying to correct the spelling of the city where my sister was born. She was born in Pittsburgh and the teacher kept telling her there was no h in Pittsburg. The teacher was ignoring the PA after the birthplace and was trying to make it KS.

[throatybeard]

Serious question Throaty...

Are there 'rights and wrongs' then or just style directives and ethnic differences? Are the 'rights' more basic than we (middle class white folk) think - limited perhaps to the structural level?


I spoke (as a child) Hungarian...and if my memory serves that verb placement was pretty liberal - using Hungarian structure for english would sound very 'wrong'

damn I'm glad I'm a geek not a English teacher.

I just spent 45 minutes on a fantastic answer to this question, and the board software ate it becuase it logged me out. I'm down for the night. Holler back at y'all some other time.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Serious question Throaty...

Are there 'rights and wrongs' then or just style directives and ethnic differences? Are the 'rights' more basic than we (middle class white folk) think - limited perhaps to the structural level?


I spoke (as a child) Hungarian...and if my memory serves that verb placement was pretty liberal - using Hungarian structure for english would sound very 'wrong'

damn I'm glad I'm a geek not a English teacher.

I just spent 45 minutes on a fantastic answer to this question, and the board software ate it becuase it logged me out. I'm down for the night. Holler back at y'all some other time.

Logged you out? That sucks..but I've never had that happen. That's equivilant to Word crashing and you realize auto save was never enabled.

[throatybeard]

Well, I finished up, and hit submit. Then it said you need to re-login, dumbass. And I'm like OK and I do. Then I hit back and my whole post is gone. So there we are.

Looooooooong post in brief. Descriptive rules are not "anything goes." In fact, they're a lot more specific and explanatory than prescriptive rules. So there are wrongs, but the number of rights among native speakers > 1.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Well, I finished up, and hit submit. Then it said you need to re-login, dumbass. And I'm like OK and I do. Then I hit back and my who post is gone. So there we are.

Looooooooong post in brief. Descriptive rules are not "anything goes." In fact, they're a lot more specific and explanatory than prescriptive rules. So there are wrongs, but the number of rights among native speakers > 1.

That's the technological equivilant of "the dog ate my homework". Bad Dog. Hope you get up the gumption to try again soon with the full post.

P.S. --Any of y'all used "gumption" in Scrabble? Any of y'all used "y'all"?

[colchar]

Ima and Tilly, thanks for asking. I got a note from the principal telling me that she's going to handle it confidentially with the teacher. This paper will be the first "test" in our evaluation of how things are going.

Hopefully the principal kept your name out of the conversation so that there isn't any backlash.