It’s your language! Learn to use it correctly! In other countries people your age (and mine) MUST BE (at least) bilingual, because English is the current language of business, and if they want a good job they have to learn YOUR language. Stop whining about “the english language being a European colonist construct.” You and I are the privileged ones here. Have the decency to put in half the work as other people your age and learn proper grammar. I suggest starting with the School House Rock soundtracks.
but also tag urself I’m “I suggest starting with the School of Rock soundtracks”
(Coming from someone wanting to be a linguist and is absolutely sick of people’s elitist English snobbery)
This is driving me nuts. I see people look at internet speak and mistake it for illiteracy. It is not. It is a way to convey ideas, expressions, and feelings that otherwise can’t be done unless in person. It is purposeful. Most people who write in Internet speak are quite capable with standard English grammar. So there is literally no need to bring that snobbish holier-than-thou bullcrap onto this post.
I am so done with “ashamed” millienials who feel offended at someone else’s purposeful grammar changes in the way they write or speak. It’s narrow-minded, racist, and shallow.
Narrow-minded, because you (general “you” for all those elitist grammar snobs) refuse to acknowledge that language is an evolving concept. It doesn’t exist in one state. It can’t. In order to serve us best, it needs to change and evolve and diversify. Communication isn’t universal, and thus, language isn’t. Even one language can have many different iterations due to regional, racial, generational, etc. reasons.
Racist, because this specifically targets racial minorities that have developed their own dialects of English, treating them as invalid and unintelligent. Not the case. Being able to code switch is actually a sign of a strong memory. Just because it isn’t an entirely different language doesn’t mean there isn’t some level of translation going on in the mind when code switching. Bilingualism is a sign of good memory and intelligence yes? Well, so is code switching. Plus: the fact that people treat dialects, such as AAVE, as invalid further encourages the spread of false stereotypes of non-white people being unintelligent.
Shallow, because this criticism for not using the “proper” English grammar is a thinly veiled excuse to claim superiority over others. Sounds like you’re pandering to people who hate millienials. Got some of that golden age nostalgia there, huh?
And what’s especially crazy is how people treat standard English as this concept that can’t be misused or changed. Standard English grammar was put together by writers afraid that people in the future wouldn’t be able to understand what they wrote. They even made up rules. It was white men in Europe who came up with the standard English grammar.
The standard English grammar is only really useful in formal situations. Even then! It is becoming outdated due to rapid changes in Social structures and concepts in a globally connected world. It’s bad news when a dialect or a language starts to stagnate. That means it becomes less useful and more of a hindrance. That is not what language is meant to be. Language is a tool to communicate a message.
And this guy, in his tweets, is doing that effectively, without using standard English grammar.
Standard English is a starting off point to understanding English, but it isn’t the end of the language. Language has so much depth, and to treat people like shit for using different dialects than the standard (which, isn’t really a real dialect. It isn’t naturally one) is so goddamn shallow.
I am so damn done with people acting like you need to speak only one, very limited, version of a language in order to be treated with respect and decency.
Y’aint nuthin’. (And that’s comin’ from a southern Texan who don’t like to speak one lick of the standard)
^^^^ and acting like you need to speak formal English at all times or it doesn’t count, somehow: “you may have published well-respected academic papers, but you said "ain’t” in a tweet, so I can ignore everything you have to say!“
Mooncustafer 