Sounding dim and uneducated is now, it seems, something to aspire to and encourage, especially at universities:
A sociolinguist from Stanford University claims the way African-Americans speak leads to discrimination across the board — in the court system, interactions with police, education, and employment. Professor John Rickford says, “Black Vernacular English” is viewed as less “trustworthy, intelligent and well-educated” than so-called standard “white” English, and that “dismantling this construction is part of the fight for racial justice.” Rickford, who is the current president of the Linguistic Society of America, said the “modern-day racialisation of language” — which mandates that African-Americans conform to the white norm — has its roots in slavery.
In other words, bad whitey. Because judging people by what falls from their mouths – its comprehensibility, precision and so forth – is racist and oppressive. And if someone sounds barely literate, and uninterested in being understood by anyone outside of their immediate circle, then you should pretend that this is somehow your fault. It’s the way of the woke.
We’ve been here before, of course, when CUNY’s Dr A. W. Strouse – an enthusiast of “social justice” and whose dissertation is titled Literary Theories of the Foreskin – denounced “bourgeois white teachers” and insisted that correcting errors of spelling and basic grammar can “make students feel bewildered, hurt, or angry,” and should therefore be abandoned.
A conceit that prompted the following:
Dr Strouse tells us what it is we need to do. We, he says, “need to think critically about the conventions that govern academic speech.” Well, okay. But what about the teenagers who haven’t mastered even basic standard English and who are excused from even trying, for fear that any correction will upset them? How “critically” will they be thinking – say, about their employment prospects?
While Dr Strouse is revelling in how exotic and ethnic his classroom sounds, and basking in how incredibly woke he’s being, are his students narrowing their options in the job market? Unless it turns out that in the real world every employer wants their company’s memos and public literature, and their customer interactions, to include lots of double negatives, unfinished words, mispronunciation, and mangled tenses. Oh, and aks instead of ask. That always looks professional.
If a common impression given by “African American Vernacular English” is of imprecision and parochialism, and of someone not in full possession of their own thoughts, as Dr Strouse acknowledges, then it seems an odd thing to encourage in class, at a university. Why would someone spend a small fortune on an education that leaves them sounding uneducated? (An impression, incidentally, that Dr Strouse evidently tries hard to avoid regarding his own ostentatiously educated, and therefore statusful, self.) But sounding cartoonishly ghetto is the way to get ahead, apparently. For other, browner people.
And let’s not forget this farce at the Writing Centre at the University of Washington, Tacoma, the stated goal of which is to “help writers write and succeed in a racist society” – a feat to be accomplished by dismissing spelling and grammar as “racist” and “an unjust language structure.” And whose director, Dr Asao Inoue, took over a year to write a simple, 500-word press release.
As I said at the time:
In short, then, students with brown skin needn’t be articulate, verbally self-possessed, or precise in their thoughts. And that ungrammatical job application, the one enlivened with incomprehensible sentences and lots of inventive spelling, will do just fine. And by the time the real-world consequences of this “social justice” posturing become difficult to avoid, Dr Inoue will have been paid – and be merrily exploiting the next batch of suckers.
And so we arrive at a familiar question: If you wanted to harm the prospects of minority students, to diminish their chances in life, while congratulating yourself and being applauded by your peers, what would you do differently?
Update:
In the comments, Mike in Seattle notes,
50 years ago, this bigotry would have been expressed as “well, it’s just not fair to expect them to do better”… The only difference is now we’re supposed to celebrate these “woke” bigots.
Indeed. It’s perverse, almost grimly comical. The students are encouraged to be hyper-critical, indeed delusional, regarding the motives of all white people, even to the point of dismissing the correction of spelling and grammar as some egregious, racially motivated act of oppression. And yet the motives of their educators, the ones who tell them these things, and whose status and careers depend on cultivating tribalism and paranoid resentment, and a kind of pernicious flattery, are spared any similar questioning – or, so far as I can see, any questioning at all.
So much for “critical thinking.”
And so, students who leave university saddled with debt and a worthless Angry Studies pseudo-qualification, and who subsequently repel employers with their chippy attitude, inept spelling and grammatical incompetence, will presumably rationalise any rejection, any hardship, as proof of the evils of “whiteness” and the “racist society” that their lecturers banged on about. Because the more obvious explanation – that they were dupes, taken for a ride by race-hustling parasites – would be much too bruising to their egos.
Update 2:
Again, via the comments, behold the zenith of this mindset:
Uh, man’s sole “jabringing” object disfigure religion trauma and nubs, uh, the, inside the trauma of representation that turns into the black child devouring and identifying with the stories and into the white culture brought up, uh, de de de de de, dink, and add subjectively like a white man, the black man!
Apparently, these are the intellectual fruits of “hacking traditional college debate’s white privilege problem.” Do watch the video. Though I should point out that you may want to bite down on something. But hey, a degrading racial caricature, a cartoonish pantomime of blackness, complete with claims of “nigga authenticity” and actual jabbering, is now the last word in wokeness.
How far we’ve come. 
It doesn’t even work on its own terms.
If black ways of speaking become accepted, then everyone will use them. And that will become standard, and then there will still be wrong dialects. This is a game the uneducated *cannot* win.
Unless you are mental enough to believe that there can be two “established” dialects, based on your race, with everyone having to understand both. Apartheid used to be considered the worst system, now it’s encouraged?
It’s not like we all speak the established English of a 100 years ago either. It’s moved quite a long way down towards common speech.
“How I speak, as a non-white woman from a working-class background, has been regularly policed throughout my life. To take just one example: the university tutor who marked me down on a poetry assignment because I “miscounted the syllables required”. The word hour is two syllables in my accent, but one syllable in the Queen’s English.”
As a non-working class white man who speaks the Freedom’s English, it’s a two-syllable pronunciation here too. Also a name spelled like that is pronounced “thaymes” and there is absolutely, positively no ‘f’ in lieutenant. It seems pretty clear to me that the reason the British lost their empire is because they don’t know how to pronounce their own words.
The word hour is two syllables in my accent, but one syllable in the Queen’s English.”
Here in Flyover US we hear on the car radio, “…this is the BBC News ARHHHHH” and always feel compelled to repeat it at least a few times with emphasis…
It seems pretty clear to me that the reason the British lost their empire is because they don’t know how to pronounce their own words.
Heh. Any minute now the whole al-oo-min-um debate will flare up again.
Speaking of food, David just offered me a free pickled “egg.”
I think that is a terrible way to treat me on my birthday.
No refunds; credit note only.
Geoffrey, ‘lieutenant’ was originally ‘levee tenant’, hence its English pronunciation.
David has Ted well trained.
Everyone else continues incorrigible.
Thomas Sowell wrote, in Black Rednecks and White Liberals, that “Black English” does not have its origins in Africa:
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/0127/5902048a.html
Words and phrases like “ain’t” or “I be” and “you be” do not come from any African language. They came from the parts of England from which many white Southerners originated. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Languagepinpoints the regions of the British Isles from which words like “chitterlings” or “chittlin’s” came or where people said “ain’t” and used other terms now thought to be “black English.” ;
In short, what is called “black English” is just as white as any other English. It is a dialect that died out as education and standardization of the language proceeded over the generations.
(End quote)
Geoffrey, ‘lieutenant’ was originally ‘levee tenant’, hence its English pronunciation.
Not really.
“Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks are taught their
Greek….”
It’s not about skin color, it’s about class.
Also familiarity, aka the dreaded “tribalism”.
In other words, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”.
When I was younger, I was bounced between two of the colonies: South Africa, and Canada. While both are English-speaking (yes, yes, both have other official languages, I am aware), an English-speaking Boer and an English-speaking Canuck sound completely foreign to one another.
As a result, I was always the outsider at school, because I sounded “funny”. I quickly adapted, so as to not sound like I just got off the boat, and the number of schoolyard fights decreased significantly. And then I’d swap countries again, and there was usually a two week period in the airlock during which I had to switch back to the “correct” accent, so as not to be mocked.
To this day, I can still do it, though very rarely. But put me in a room of Afrikaaners, and within ten minutes my accent will be back, and I’ll be saying “ag man” and “hey bro, howzit” without thinking. And when I do, the Boers in the room become a lot more accommodating than when I speak as a Canuck.
The problem with “black vernacular English” isn’t that it’s different, it’s that it’s ignorant. Much of the vernacular is the result of the language not being taught, or learned, completely, and so phonetic pronunciations work their way back into the language.
It does mark the speaker, not as stupid or inferior, but as un- or under-educated. When a 22 year old talks at the same linguistic level as a 5 year old in kindergarten, it’s may be accepted and tolerated, but it should not be celebrated, let alone promoted as being the way forward.
“Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?
As the saying goes, the British are a people divided by a common tongue.
The problem with “black vernacular English” isn’t that it’s different, it’s that it’s ignorant. Much of the vernacular is the result of the language not being taught, or learned, completely,
And yet, our woke professors insist that standard English shouldn’t be “privileged” in class, or in academic writing, or during job interviews. But as noted before, if you’re an employer and trying to thin a pile of job applications, repeated errors of even simple grammar and spelling are, inevitably, going to be a big help in deciding which ones to ignore. Whether the professors like it or not, “alternative types of English” tend to send a message – of ignorance, carelessness and intellectual imprecision. And if someone is apparently too distracted to proofread their own job application, that’s unlikely to inspire great confidence.
And remember, we’re talking about university students. Our brightest and best.
Hi Squires, my dad was from Pennsyltucky, a holler-like region. He never learned how to accent-switch, possibly because there was no need. The Army was always wanting him to go to OCS and every civilian job he had wanted him to go into mgmt or at least be foreman.
He was born in Nowhere, WV, moved to the rural parts outside of Youngstown at the age of ten (where my mother’s side is from, and they speak Yinzer). His second go at college after Vietnam led to a career as a big deal project manager for AT&T and a transfer to NJ in the 1980s. Leading teams in a high tech, white collar industry on the East Coast, I expect he wouldn’t have done himself any favors retaining the speech of my extended family.
It is worth noting that most people I’ve known who spoke a “white” country dialect could and would reign it in as the situation called for it. And if you spoke with them using a more educated or formal vocabulary they still understood you. One of the problems with “ebonics” is that too many who learn to speak that way learn only to speak that way, and to think only in it too; not a promising development considering how often it acts as a sort of parroting pidgin, wherein phonetic imitation untethered from a literary understanding of words and phrases can run amok. Thus bon appetit can become bone apple tea.
…I’d much, much rather hear ANY other accent than the nasal drone of the UMC politically correct white American female.
The only nasal drone I find pleasing to hear is French Woman, and even that I blame squarely on my gonads.
The bigger problem with UMC PC WAF is that the speakers of it show just as little moral capacity or willingness for critical thought or honest self examination as your most ghetto of hoochies.
“The word hour is two syllables in my accent, but one syllable in the Queen’s English.”
Yes, and “film” is two syllables in Irish and western Scottish accents. (“Fillum/im”. It’s a Gaelic influence, apparently.) But we accept that, for most people, it isn’t. How hard is it to understand that standardization of language – a method of communication, let’s not forget – isn’t oppression?
“So much for ‘critical thinking.’”
It all goes back to Marx. “The working class cannot believe anything anyone of the middle class says to them. Except, y’know… me, obviously. Everything I tell ’em is absolute gospel.”
“Not really.”
Yeah, nobody really knows where “leftenant” came from. “Lettenant” is common, although as far as I can make out not universal, in the Royal Navy.
“They came from the parts of England from which many white Southerners originated.”
Oh, yes. I’m fascinated by that sort of thing. The Southern American – and by extension, black American – dialect has a very West Country feel to it with all those “ain’t”s and “be”s. The intonation and vowel sounds have changed down the years, of course, but I always find it hilarious when some rapper bloke thinks he’s being all “street” and “gangsta” by, basically, talking like Worzel Gummidge.
As the saying goes, the British are a people divided by a common tongue.
Bill, I believe you missed the literary reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAYUuspQ6BY
Spiney, I believe the word you wanted is “ignernt”.
Squires,
…not a promising development considering how often it acts as a sort of parroting pidgin, wherein phonetic imitation untethered from a literary understanding of words and phrases can run amok.
All I can do is shake my head at what I see on the tee-vee, when urban black “persons of interest” are interviewed by police. They throw “legalese” terms about freely, not knowing at all what any of it means. That the cops don’t burst out laughing is a level of professionalism I don’t posses.
Sam L.
Probably, yes, but also I know I’ve heard the “er” dropped, or at least virtually silent.
They throw “legalese” terms about freely, not knowing at all what any of it means.
See “Booked On Phonics”. For instance:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Oswald%20Bates&=true
Oswald Bates
The character protrayed by Damon Wayans in the sketch comedy In Living Color who talks nonsense using a lot of big words and has no idea what he’s talking. He usually talks to himself with gestures and facial expressions as if he is arguing with someone else.
— Oswald Bates, In Living Color season 1 ep 3
by Oswald Bates November 29, 2011
I grew up in rural Kentucky. I learned early on to switch accents. Now people here in the Northeast are surprised to learn I’m from fried chicken land. I don’t think people who speak as I do when I’m back home are ignorant. Quite the contrary in fact. However, I do know that you have to overcome certain prejudices if you speak like that in other places.
Funnily enough, my great uncle had to face the exact opposite problem. He grew up in New Jersey but moved to a farm in rural Kentucky. All his life he heard snide remarks about his accent.
Pst314, that’s very similar to the sort of thing you’d hear on the old Amos & Andy show back in the ’30s and ’40s. Of course, they were really white guys so it was racist.
Some examples of Aboriginal Kriol here. Now being black myself, can’t really see how this will help the job prospects of those who communicate this way, indeed if they ever get through school. It actually hurt my eyes trying to read it.
https://www.2m.com.au/blog-kimberley-kriol/
The word hour is two syllables in my accent, but one syllable in the Queen’s English.
It is one syllable. Otherwise all the filthy puns in Shakespeare’s plays don’t work.
He grew up in New Jersey but moved to a farm in rural Kentucky.
North or South? After I left Jersey the main thing was just teaching myself not to say fuck so much.
…can’t really see how this will help the job prospects of those who communicate this way…
In the beginning I was doubtful, what with eggshell-striding insistence on the cromulence of Kriol as a language. When I got to the part where we are told it is a telecommunications company behind efforts that will only encourage people not to learn intelligible English…
I realize there may be times in life when you may need to supply Claymore mines to those who justify the “EXPLOSIVE IS POISONOUS IF EATEN” warnings, but it isn’t an ideal situation you should go out of your way to maintain.
Unfortunately we can likely predict with reasonable accuracy the screeching that would ensue if the telecom instead had spent its money sending English teachers into these communities. Also the palor of the loudest.
But a southern accent in a white person is still an indicator of intellectual and moral retardation…
So basically language is racist
========
Now you’re catching on, so is this blog with its white background, and this spoon, and days ending in ‘y’.
All hail The Holy Melanin™
“speaking like a hillbilly, no one will take you seriously”
It can work both ways. I knew an arson investigator who used his home-grown southern “good ol’ boy” accent and demeanor to coax confessions from suspects by convincing them he was brainless and harmless.
Pst314,
The character protrayed by Damon Wayans in the sketch comedy In Living Color who talks nonsense using a lot of big words and has no idea what he’s talking.
Oh gawd, I remember that one!
“Related”… https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-45599862
Apparently, these are the intellectual fruits of “hacking traditional college debate’s white privilege problem.”
At first I thought the ‘debate’ video had to be a joke or one of your performance art things. What the f*ck has happened to universities?
At first I thought the ‘debate’ video had to be a joke
It’s an extraordinary thing. And for anyone with an expectation of standards, probably dismaying. But this is concentrated wokeness. Or as Professor Rickford puts it, “racial justice.”
And so the black students who participate in this farce are allowed to completely ignore the topic that they’re supposed to be debating, in favour of ludicrous and incoherent claims of victimhood, and are allowed to ignore time limits, and to ignore any semblance of logic or evidence or formal argument, any structure at all, and to spout what is for minutes on end actual gibberish, a kind of Dadaist jive. Because disregarding the rules for reciprocation, and shouting profanities at the moderators, is so daring and innovative. And so terribly authentic. The incoherent jabbering and screeching is what the organisers want to believe, and want us to believe, is some pure black essence.
So no racism there, obviously.
Grim comedy aside, you have to wonder what message is being sent to minority students by the rewarding of this half-witted claptrap. As I said in the earlier thread, the message seems to be that all rules can be broken with impunity, and all standards and proprieties dispensed with as and when convenient, provided you’re sufficiently black and pretend to be oppressed, while actually being cossetted and flattered at every turn. Or, “If you can’t actually structure a rational argument, never mind. Just keep shouting ‘racist!’ and flap your arms about.” Which is not, I suspect, a recipe for success outside of the Clown Quarter.
Oh, and it goes without saying the president of the Cross-Examination Debate Association, Paul Mabrey, dismissed criticism of the lack of standards as “thinly-veiled racism” and “the worst of our human bigotry… motivated by racism and fear.”
This is who they are, and this is how readily they will lie.
For some unfathomable reason, trying to post links with an iPad results in a sort of HTML Chernobyl.
So, to avoid upsetting our host, the Oik suggests giving a listen to “Ign’ant And Shit” by the very wonderful Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who has some very salient points to make regarding patois.
Damon Wayans.
Mention of his comedy creation reminded me of this parody of one of Jordan Peterson’s recent gibberglot debate opponents:
https://youtu.be/999QkUU_ZU4
trying to post links with an iPad results in a sort of HTML Chernobyl.
Here’s the link.
…who talks nonsense using a lot of big words and has no idea what he’s talking.
Odd, I remember him being in prison in those sketches, not a politician.
Sort of Related. Ben Shapiro interviews Jason Whitlock, American sports journalist. Very much worth your time. An example of people reasoning together.
…who talks nonsense using a lot of big words and has no idea what he’s talking.
Odd, I remember him being in prison in those sketches, not a politician.
First of all . . .
I knew an arson investigator who used his home-grown southern “good ol’ boy” accent and demeanor to coax confessions from suspects by convincing them he was brainless and harmless.
“Say, that’s a really nice pair of shoes. Where did you get those? I’d love a pair myself, but I have get them made special.”
Y’know, I’ve seen My Fair Lady a few times, and I can’t recall a single version in which Professor Higgins was tarred and feathered by the Woke Intelligentsia for trying to drive out Miss Dolittle’s “authentic voice.” Which isn’t to say that such a version isn’t in production right now.
Do you suppose that at this very moment, there’s an Angry Studies professor excoriating Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn for their participation in such a thinly-veiled racist production? (That the Academy awarded them 8 Oscars for this blasphemy just proves how terrible White Hollywood is and always has been.)
Y’know, I’ve seen My Fair Lady a few times, and I can’t recall a single version in which Professor Higgins was tarred and feathered by the Woke Intelligentsia for trying to drive out Miss Dolittle’s “authentic voice.” Which isn’t to say that such a version isn’t in production right now.
If the Left is not stopped that movie and many others will likely eventually be banned.
Now, I have to admit that many professional people (think doctors and lawyers and engineers(me)) speak their own languages that the vast majority of the population does not understand at all. I happen to think that the SJ movement, and the social “sciences” are attempting to emulate these professional languages with one of their own. They can’t just use ordinary words which everyone understands, because then the great unwashed would see thru the fog and call BS on them. So they veil everything in obscure words and studies (LOTS of “studies”, in “peer reviewed journals”, just like the real scientists do), and then they use these credentials and “evidence” to re-make society, because they have nothing else to use to remake society the way that they think it should be.
Unfortunately, they do not realize that there are very good reason all the airline pilots and air traffic controllers in the world speak the same language (English), and speak it well enough to clearly communicate with one another. Same thing with the railroad conductors and engineers and ship captains and pilots. Same thing with the vast majority of the technical information around the world – it has settled on standard English as the means of communications. (There was a time when it appeared that German might fill that niche, but the unpleasantness of the 1930s and 40s put that thought to rest)
And the commercial field has similarly settled on English, so that we now have call centers in India who help computer owners in Iowa figure out MS Windows (not always successfully) And in Europe, all those Japanese and Chinese tourists get around by speaking English to the French and Germans and Italians and Spanish.
But now the SJWs say that we need to encourage all of these organizations (STEM, commercial, financial) to hire people who cannot even speak the language of their “home” country? Why can’t they learn to speak standard English? Why don’t they use this language in their university courses, exclusively?
One of my grandfathers could not read or write his own name in either English or Italian, but he raised 11 children who were completely American, and only spoke a small amount of Italian, including one scientist and two nurses. His grandchildren include many professional people (Doctors, lawyers, engineers). Many immigrants from Asia and Mexico and Africa go out of their way to ensure that their progeny learn to speak English well, so that they can have better lives. They do not teach them to resent the opportunities that they had, and demand reparations for imagined slights.
Somewhat related, this. Because setting fire to students’ hair and punching teachers in the face is how black students “engage in learning.” Apparently.
Wild Camel Hump Fat
Note the amusing “SUPERFOODS FROM THE DESERT”. Superfoods. Heh.
I happen to think that the SJ movement, and the social “sciences” are attempting to emulate these professional languages with one of their own. They can’t just use ordinary words which everyone understands, because then the great unwashed would see thru the fog and call BS on them.
I think it’s partly this, and partly a manifestation of the “cargo cult” mentality they carry. Physicians and physicists and engineers use inscrutable language, and people respond by giving these professionals a lot of respect. Therefore, if we SJWs speak in gibberish, we will similarly be granted respect.
Good luck explaining to them that there is a difference between using technical language to describe complex objects and ideas, versus using jargon as a means of disguising horseshit. Their egos require them to insist that you’re just not bright enough to grasp the profound truths behind their made-up words.
George Bernard Shaw summed up this class business nicely when saying “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him,”
It’s like when you see British kids write “I would of”.
This isn’t helped by the likes of Oliver Kamm writing in The Times that this is not an error due to so many people making it. Kamm is also fond of telling people they should speak however they like and make no attempt to hide their accent (or adhere to what most normal people think are ordinary grammatical rules). However, it is telling that Kamm speaks roughly in the same manner as Prince Charles and, if he followed his own advice, would probably not have a job at The Times. For all his advice to the oiks, I wonder how he’s encouraging his own children to speak and write?
This isn’t helped by the likes of Oliver Kamm writing in The Times that this is not an error due to so many people making it.
Thing is, not all changes in language are beneficial. Distinctions can be lost and meanings can be blunted. Saying “begs the question” when you mean “raises the question,” for instance. Or nemesis being reduced to meaning an enemy or arch-enemy, thereby losing it’s rather more precise and poetic meaning.
And so, you end up with Voldemort being described as the nemesis of Harry Potter, when the term only makes sense (in the poetic sense) the other way around. It’s not incidental that the great dark wizard is undone by a schoolboy; or that Miss Marple – the nemesis of countless plotters and poisoners – is generally assumed to be a harmless, slightly dotty old dear. And nemesis needn’t be a person at all. It could be humble bacteria, as in The War of the Worlds. The word implies a kind of cosmic comeuppance, some detail or consequence overlooked, often as a result of vanity and arrogance. Nemesis being the thing that follows hubris.
[ Edited. ]
“Nemesis being the thing that follows hubris.”
It occurs to me that the failure to teach this might go some way towards explaining the vast quantities of the latter knocking around in certain quarters these days.
I’m amazed that with all this discussion of impenetrable jargon and fanciful linquistics, the Turbo Encabulator hasn’t made an appearance. What’s *wrong* with you people?