I was an Air Force brat. We moved a lot. I can you tell the move from Hawaii to Alabama was HARD for language.

I was pretty good at my Pidgin and could talk like a Hawaiian. Then we moved to Montgomery Alabama. Talk about a shift in language. On the first day of 3rd grade our teacher gave us a pop spelling test. She said the words and we were supposed to write it down. I made a ZERO! I could not understand her thick southern accent. The school called a parent teacher conference because they thought I was learning disabled. My parents could not understand that teacher either! They assigned me a different teacher.

That's funny. Been down that road myself. I think I did 7 schools in 12 years. High IQ, low performance. Finally figured out I was just lazy.

I did 10 schools for the 12 years of school. I heard the phrase "Class this is Glen the new boy in our school" every year except as a senior in High School.

Only 6 schools for me, I guess I got lucky that dad was deployed for 2.5-3 years a pop.

My mistake (poor memory to blame). It was the Oakland school district in 1996.

In 2004 Cosby's most scathing statement on the issue went like this; Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "Why you ain't." You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth"

happy now?

"scathing statement" (?)
~~~~~~~~~~
Sounded to me like he was doing the black community a favor - reality ck., etc.

At some level, the way blacks speak (to each other) can be seen as a way to communicate in an affectionate manner. Also, something comforting in knowing that it's just between them.
.
I do see it as irresponsible that it's fostered and abetted in their culture.
Sort of a F. U. on 'the man'.

That's actually a fairly common one in TX, you hear it from whites/blacks and hispanics.

Some of the local stuff that makes my skin crawl is "Cuss", hate that one. Or "come/go with", as in "____ is gong to the ____, do you want to go with?"

And "braggin on"

Lately I have heard ebonics being refer to as hood speak.

I'm someone who is not happy with the BS bandied about here as the truth. I'm also someone who believes that everyone should be fluent in standard English in the USA. There is nothing wrong with slang as long as you know it's slang. If it's the only way you know how to speak, you have a problem.

Back to your assertion: the Oakland school board wanted to make Ebonics "the official language" of their schools or they wanted to recognize it as a form of American speech? Don't let the truth get in the way of a good redneck story.

I personally think that a lot of Ebonics is garbage speech but nothing hurts my brain more than dumb schit white slang like, "just for shyts and grins", or "I just 'seen' her walk by", etc.

Look again there is a lot of difference between the official language and an official language.

I think the word is aks not a axe y'all, eh.

"Taught as an official language"...that's the one that made the BS detector start overheating. I'd be glad to admit if I'm wrong, do you have a link for this?

I think the word you guys are looking for with regard to the schools is "recognize." Just as there are courses in Black studies the language, the dialect of the African American is part of those studies. The AA's have brought 1000's of words to the English language as we speak it here in the US. The AA pronunciation is just as much a part of it as the word itself.

I could go on and on but I won't. I'm sure you all know a lot of the Western African language got married with English in early American history. In Louisiana, it got married to French.

American dialects have been my course of study at 2 different junctures in my life, both having something to do with college. ;) I have several books on slang and origin. As an English major in school I might have liked to teach this had I known there would have been an interest 30 years later. I also would have needed a better foundation in the academics rather than the way I approached school. http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/i...illy_nilly.gif

Speeder, check these links out:

Oakland Ebonics controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original Oakland Resolution on "Ebonics"

Amended Resolution of the Oakland School Board on Ebonics


I'm all for learning another language or being exposed to another language. Don't really care which, the more the merrier. For example learning a language of one's ancestry. The thing that has me slightly surprised is it would appear they were attempting to put into place an educational sub-system in which the language of communication is generally not known/understood elsewhere? What would alarm me is where then could they go upon graduation if they cannot adequately communicate with others? How could they perform in standardized tests to gain entry into higher level education if they so desired?

I worked with a girl that would get "her hair did" every friday.

A guy would cash his paycheck and get all one dollar bills so "his money be long".

Another guy would respond to something by saying "bochetamo like a mofo"....
(never knew what that meant) (other than the mofo part)

There's many many more......

Like this?....

NSFW

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/wWulZOKANB4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

LOL,

Remember Vic Miles, CBS News.

He was a good friend of my father.

His off air persona was different than on.

I can't stand the northeast/Boston accent. It instantly lowers the perception of one's intelligence by about 30 or 40 I.Q. points, which is unfortunate because there are some genuinely smart and bright people in this part of the world, they just sound dumb as a box of rocks when they open up their cake-holes and start droning in that nasal tone with no "r"s. After about four or five words I tune them out. It's insufferable.

Oddly enough, southern drawl is typically associated with people who are slow, less-than-intellectual, etc. but I find that accent to be much more tolerable.

My advice to people in this area is if they want to be taken seriously by others, they need to learn to speak and annunciate properly, or at least in a way that approximates normal. Right or wrong, that's the way it is. People with heavy accents simply won't command the attention and first impression respect necessary to convey even genuinely intelligent ideas.

Obviously, the rest of the country needs to conform to what some of us think is tolerable (no one person in particular). Especially since some regional dialects are more irritating that others. :rolleyes:
BTW, this issue is not an English only problem. Dialect issues are in many European countries as well. I believe the Aussies also have issue with it.

What I can't understand is why American immigrants expect the country to change everything we do to adapt to their foreign language. Both sides of my family came from different countries. My grandparents got a basic grasp of English but my parents and their siblings all adopted English as the language of their new homeland. None of them expected govt offices to change the forms to the language of their land of origin. Can you imagine "Thank you for call Zorch Corporation. Please press one for English. Bitte drücken Sie zwei für Deutsch" ?

So, who here thinks Country Music sounds like you have an IQ of under 100?