Is proper grammar really going downhill?

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There has always been street slang - it usually fades out or completely mutates into something else entirely in a short time.



Actually, when I was in school, the policies made sense. For term papers and other formal writing, standard American English was the medium, and students were dinged for spelling and grammar inconsistencies. For creative writing, more latitude was allowed - the focus was on content, not form. It's hard to write about life in Miami, or Savannah, or Jamaica and have everyone speak like a grammar school teacher in Peoria.

Last edited by monty on 25 Oct 2007, 12:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

yeah, I saw it in creative writing. Where I get mixed up is when it leaks over into the actual English class that deals with grammar. I've seen teachers go to edit papers and find a misspelling or completely different word than what they are meaning, but say "no, leave it that way-it adds pizazz"... huh? lol.

Hopefully, you know I didn't, and don't, mean it that way. It is just that afrikaans is fairly popular, and I don't even think many people, even BLACKS, could name even 5 african languages, even though there may be HUNDREDS.

And I am not referring to blacks as a race on the whole, just as I am not with whites. I even used western europe to show how languages evolve through a "telephone game" type method.

Lest we forget cell phone text messenging as well....OMG!! !

This really reminds me of the Mike Judge movie, "Idiocracy" or i think that is the name of it. Basically it is a movie about the future. It shows how the population of America will look if only the stupid people are breeding. THe more intelligent people had less kids and therefore were eventually bred out. It was a comedy, but it still gave me the chills watching it. I cant help it, but when i hear someone speak incorrectly or with bad grammer, i automatically think they are a little ignorant. It feels like the english language is slipping from our hands.

yes... and here's a sentence people should learn to help prevent one of my grammatical pet-peeves:

They're over there with their new shoes.

I hate it when people mix these types of words up

they never know when to use "then" or "than"

or all kinds of those thngs

Why is it necessary to say we should name 5 African languages? The speech of modern day African Americans is rooted in West Africa. I don't see what a cultural difference in speech has to do with bad grammar.

One thing that I've noticed is that people will often use third person plural pronouns, rather than third person singular, simply because the third person plural pronouns are genderless. It is lazy and incorrect. The error seems to be committed more frequently by women than by men, and usually deliberately.

A lot of people also seem to split infinitives carelessly.

Gee, I wasn't even issuing a challenge. You seem to speak fine. I CLEARLY wasn't targeting you! Almost all of the blacks I have worked with, and have been friends with spoke FINE! I wasn't making a blanket statement about race. Sorry if ebonics was the first thing of that nature to come to mind. It WAS heavily touted. As for african influence, that is pretty hard to believe. Besides, it isn't look at too favorably when ANYONE does it. White, black, whatever.

It is not lazy - as you mention, it is often deliberate. As to being incorrect, it currently is generally considered wrong, but wouldn't be if it became the norm. We have eliminated the curtsy from our daily lives without weakening society. But I guess I am showing my colours.

Most grammar teachers will mark off a paper if the word Earth is title-cased in all circumstances. On the other hand, they admit there is a rule that specific places are proper nouns, and thus should be capitalized. This convention goes back to the days when the Earth was taken for granted. I have intentionally capitalized the word Earth regardless of the context or consequences since 1974. Earth. Earth. Earth. Take that, obsessive-compulsive grammar folk.

"Electrolytes: It's What Plants Crave." Idiocracy gives me the chills too, especially when one considers that many people actually behave like this in real life.

Isn't looked at favorably? Depends on who is doing the looking. And that is a cultural judgment.

Well, the Gullah language of the Carolinas and Georgia are clearly influenced by West African languages, and it is still spoken in parts of the low country. Though most people have assimilated and those patterns have carried over into the Ebonic dialects of the south.

Monty,

It ALSO says:

And WOW, Gullah came out of left field! I started talking about "ebonics". Frankly, I don't recall hearing ANY words that sounded like they came from another language in that one. Then again:



That sounds like eddie murphy doing buckweat on SNL! I didn't bother reading the whole thing, but it looks like something some slave may have tried to write based on a little knowledge of spelling and copying overheard words. But MAN, some DJ, just last week, asked about where AKS came from. NOW we know!

Yes, many pidgin languages start off with someone's best impression of what they think a language is. The fact that this is a translation of a New Testament passage means that the flow and the word choices will be more pidginy English than a typical conversation in Gullah.

BTW: people's name's are proper nouns, and they should be capitalized to show respect. eddie murphy should be Eddie Murphy. Also, buckweat should be Buckwheat. Wouldn't want people to think lowly of y'all.

Thou knowest, for a few centuries now, most English speakers have had to communicate without the unique second-person-singular. We simply make use of the same pronoun and verb for the second-person-singular and second-person-plural.

I think that there might be some places in England that still use "thou", and possibly some Quakers in the USA.

What wouldst thou do if thou couldst once more make use of this type of speech again?

Thou wouldst engender less confusion, for it would be clear to all that thou werest speaking to only one person, and not to a group. Thy speech would thus be more precise.

Upon meeting one person, thou wouldst say: "Greetings. How art thou today? Willst thou remove thy hat, and sit for a while?"

Upon meeting more than one person, thou wouldst say: "Greetings. How are you today? Will you remove your hats, and sit for a while?"

Mon Cher,

Here in New Orleans many still speak French, we are the third largest Honduran city, the Islanos speak an old Spanish, but at home some still speak Guanche, one of the branches of Tamazight, the oldest language, spoken by the Amazight, commonly known as Berber.

Angloes, English as we call the first wave, Yankees the second, speak several dialects, Shanty Iriish, New England, and Yankee trash. It denotes their past and social standing. Americans are recent. Being Americans they think we should all change, and be like them.

People of color are a wide range, Native American, FMCs (Free Man of Color) from long ago, educated, wealthy, often speaking several languages, for business is best done by showing respect.

New Orleans was here long before my family came in 1790. Only speaking German, English, Lanape, and Cherokee, some Creek, they had to learn Spanish and French.

Now, there is the French of the royal court in exile, and the French of the Arcadians, dumped here by the British. There are at least a dozen Creoles, a more or less mix of French, Spanish, Native American, with a large African addition. Gumbo is African for okra.

We are considered the most European city in the Americas.

In Americans we can see which speak Indentured Servant, and which speak Prison Colony. Their class and origin is in their words. It is now called Standard English. It is not derived from the educated class of English. The Crown dumped the worst of England and Ireland here.

They are still true to their roots. Indentured servant is more common in the northern tier, while the south is strongly Ogalthorpe's Colony. Like Australian, Hick and Trailer Trash are derived from prison slang. What we know of them is their neighbors have a habit of vanishing, men, women, children, and none of them have any idea how.

Through death and vanishings they became the only people in many Counties.

We do resort to archaic French and Spanish, so they will not know what we are saying. It is the same thing they do with prison slang. They do seem to think all girls not pregnant are an affront to their god.

Where they are a majority, through death and vanishings, they speak prison slang openly, but call it Country. The Internet has no social control, so they will make it their own.

Forced to deal with them, many African Americans learned Prison Slang. Strange how fast they unlearned it when finding jobs in the north, or joining the service. The same person who speaks a neighborhood dialect, may also speak University level English at work.

African Americans survived by being smart and adaptive. They are represented far beyond their numbers and economic class at the Patent Office. For a people held down, first by slavery, then Jim Crow, and the all we have is being white faction, who in 1963 had a Third Grade education, in 1980 their children graduated High School, in 2000 their children graduate College, and now are filling advanced degree programs and the Professions.

Native Americans have to hire outsiders to run the reservations, their children are getting Doctorates.

The Indentured Servants and Prison Colony are reaching their own natural level. Preacher Bush is smiteing Babylon. English was never his strong suit.

The Crown's Curse has been laid on this land. May a Pox take the English.