Does this make me classist or (shudder!) racist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in the South, and quite a few people say "I'm fixing to do this and that." I figured it's local, y'all. Same as in New England, where "I says" used to drive me nuts. We are speaking of academic environment, where Standard American English, i.e. the dialect of Grosse Pointe, MI, is expected to be used and taught. You want to hear it? Turn on CNN. Throughout the world, regardless of a specific language, a heavy regional accent is a sign of poor education. Love it, hate it, it is what it is.

I speak English with a noticeable foreign accent and go out of my way to compensate with correct grammar and usage (to the best of my knowledge). I don't want my child to be taught a regional accent. The school is meant to perpetuate a standard. What happens outside of school is another matter entirely.

Wait, what? Who said that Standard American English = how people in Grosse Pointe talk? Why Grosse Pointe?

Also, I'm guessing that you haven't listened to the BBC lately. Regional accents galore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup. Are you worried about your kid picking up the habit? He won't.

Why not? That's how a lot of kids talk. Presumably they learned it from teachers/parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it makes you racist and little ignorant. Do you care that a teacher from Boston does not pronounce their r's? No. Because when white people don't pronounce things correctly it is cute when black people do it, you think they are uneducated.

Not the pp but that's just not the case--poor grammar is poor grammar. When my southern in laws say fixin or the something akin to that it drives me nuts! It's not a race thing but it may be a class thing. Other things I can't stand: "alls I'm saying," "where you at?,", I could care less," etc.

I live in the South, and quite a few people say "I'm fixing to do this and that." I figured it's local, y'all. Same as in New England, where "I says" used to drive me nuts. We are speaking of academic environment, where Standard American English, i.e. the dialect of Grosse Pointe, MI, is expected to be used and taught. You want to hear it? Turn on CNN. Throughout the world, regardless of a specific language, a heavy regional accent is a sign of poor education. Love it, hate it, it is what it is.

I speak English with a noticeable foreign accent and go out of my way to compensate with correct grammar and usage (to the best of my knowledge). I don't want my child to be taught a regional accent. The school is meant to perpetuate a standard. What happens outside of school is another matter entirely.

Nicely said +1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should I be concerned that one of the home room teachers at my kid's Big 3 Elementary School class says "aks" instead of "ask"?

Does that make you classist, or racist? Well, that depends. Suppose that your child's teacher said "y'all" and dropped her letter "l"s from the end of words like "pool". But she was a beautiful, preppy sorority type who had attended Nashville's elite Harpeth Hall (or Charleston's Ashley Hall) prep school, and later graduated from the University of Alabama, where she had been a Crimson Tide Cheerleader. Would you be "concerned", or would you be "really happy" to have your child taught by such a "sweet" teacher[b]?

The fact that no one has responded to the above example is telling.

I'll bite. The y'all bit doesn't really matter to me (as that is clearly southern dialect), but I would not be happy spending $35K a year to have some dumb ass cheerleader teach my kid.

"Y'all" is a contraction of two words (You and All), not the phonetic misspeaking of a word ("Ax" rather than "Ask.") Yes, there is a difference.

And what Southerner drops ls from the end of words? Sorry, but no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard somebody say "aks" just this morning. English is at least her third language. She's a college graduate. If I assumed that she was ignorant based on her saying "aks", that would be ignorant of me.

She is obviously ignorant of part of English vocabulary. No need to assume the obvious.

Foreigners often use correct pronunciation and grammar, because they were taught it from the get-go. You college grad probably skipped that class.

No, I'm certain that she knows the word, given that she used it entirely correctly. It's just that she pronounced it "aks".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"Y'all" is a contraction of two words (You and All), not the phonetic misspeaking of a word ("Ax" rather than "Ask.") Yes, there is a difference.

And what Southerner drops ls from the end of words? Sorry, but no.

"Aks" is not a "phonetic misspeaking" of the word ask, any more than "Wensday" is a phonetic misspeaking of the word Wednesday or "lawn-zher-ay" is a phonetic misspeaking of the word lingerie. (Or do you pronounce them Wed-ness-day and lin-dzher-ee?) What "aks" is, is the way some people/dialects pronounce the word that is spelled a-s-k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should I be concerned that one of the home room teachers at my kid's Big 3 Elementary School class says "aks" instead of "ask"?

Does that make you classist, or racist? Well, that depends. Suppose that your child's teacher said "y'all" and dropped her letter "l"s from the end of words like "pool". But she was a beautiful, preppy sorority type who had attended Nashville's elite Harpeth Hall (or Charleston's Ashley Hall) prep school, and later graduated from the University of Alabama, where she had been a Crimson Tide Cheerleader. Would you be "concerned", or would you be "really happy" to have your child taught by such a "sweet" teacher[b]?

The fact that no one has responded to the above example is telling.

I'll bite. The y'all bit doesn't really matter to me (as that is clearly southern dialect), but I would not be happy spending $35K a year to have some dumb ass cheerleader teach my kid.

"Y'all" is a contraction of two words (You and All), not the phonetic misspeaking of a word ("Ax" rather than "Ask.") Yes, there is a difference.

And what Southerner drops ls from the end of words? Sorry, but no.

My sibling attended Stanford back in the late 1980s. One of the young men in their social group, "Luke", was from a very small town in the South. He dropped most of the "l"s from the end of his words, such that "fool" sounded more like "foo". Strange but true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"Y'all" is a contraction of two words (You and All), not the phonetic misspeaking of a word ("Ax" rather than "Ask.") Yes, there is a difference.

And what Southerner drops ls from the end of words? Sorry, but no.

"Aks" is not a "phonetic misspeaking" of the word ask, any more than "Wensday" is a phonetic misspeaking of the word Wednesday or "lawn-zher-ay" is a phonetic misspeaking of the word lingerie. (Or do you pronounce them Wed-ness-day and lin-dzher-ee?) What "aks" is, is the way some people/dialects pronounce the word that is spelled a-s-k.

This is a crappy argument. Clearly, you've never taken French language classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should I be concerned that one of the home room teachers at my kid's Big 3 Elementary School class says "aks" instead of "ask"?

Does that make you classist, or racist? Well, that depends. Suppose that your child's teacher said "y'all" and dropped her letter "l"s from the end of words like "pool". But she was a beautiful, preppy sorority type who had attended Nashville's elite Harpeth Hall (or Charleston's Ashley Hall) prep school, and later graduated from the University of Alabama, where she had been a Crimson Tide Cheerleader. Would you be "concerned", or would you be "really happy" to have your child taught by such a "sweet" teacher[b]?

The fact that no one has responded to the above example is telling.

I'll bite. The y'all bit doesn't really matter to me (as that is clearly southern dialect), but I would not be happy spending $35K a year to have some dumb ass cheerleader teach my kid.

"Y'all" is a contraction of two words (You and All), not the phonetic misspeaking of a word ("Ax" rather than "Ask.") Yes, there is a difference.

And what Southerner drops ls from the end of words? Sorry, but no.

My sibling attended Stanford back in the late 1980s. One of the young men in their social group, "Luke", was from a very small town in the South. He dropped most of the "l"s from the end of his words, such that "fool" sounded more like "foo". Strange but true.

Since a previous poster took offense with the cheerleader detail of the hypothetical, I will get rid of that detail.

So, are you classist, or racist? Well, that depends.

Suppose that your child's teacher said "y'all" and dropped her letter "l"s from the end of words like "pool". But she was a beautiful, preppy sorority type who had attended Nashville's elite Harpeth Hall (or Charleston's Ashley Hall) prep school, and later graduated from the University of Virginia. Would you be "concerned", or would you be "really happy" to have your child taught by such a "sweet" teacher?

[Anonymous]

This article, written by a black linguist, describes the use of "aks" quite well. Here is an excerpt:

The first thing to understand is that, for black people, "ax" has a different meaning than "ask." Words are more than sequences of letters, and "ax" is drunk in from childhood. "Ax" is a word indelibly associated not just with asking but with black people asking. That sentiment alone is powerful enough to cut across conscious decisions about what is standard or proper.

"Ax," then, is as integral a part of being a black American as are subtle aspects of carriage, demeanor, humor and religious practice. "Ax" is a gospel chord in the form of a word, a facet of black being — which is precisely why black people can both make fun of and also regularly use "ax," even as college graduates.

Yet nothing can stop people from hearing "ax" as illiterate, which makes the word a small tragedy in its way. When a black speaker gets the most comfortable, the most articulate, the most herself — that is exactly when she is likely to slide in an "ax" for "ask." Immediately she sounds ignorant to any nonblack person who hears her, not to mention to quite a few black ones.

Yet I hope that my small contribution to the pro-axive literature might help some of us hear "ax" in a different way. The simple fact is that because "ax" is blackness, it has survived and will continue to.






And here is the link to the whole thing:

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/19/opinion/la-oe-mcwhorter-black-speech-ax-20140119

[Anonymous]

I'm not the pp you are trying to elicit a response from but yes, I would be unhappy with the cheerleader twit too. Proper grammar for a teacher is a must. I don't care what they look like but they should be competent as well as possess the other qualities, kindness, love of children, etc. It's not racist to expect a teacher, of whatever ethnicity, to be well spoken. As a teacher they should be held to a higher standard. If I heard a teacher say "I might could" like a very well educated southern member of my family, I would cringe just as I do when my family member says it--and, by the way, she fits the bill of the southern school teacher hypothetical. No one's grammar is perfect but there is no reason that we should not all strive to and expect hat our teachers will speak correctly. I repeat this is not a race thing---so ridiculous!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This article, written by a black linguist, describes the use of "aks" quite well. Here is an excerpt:

The first thing to understand is that, for black people, "ax" has a different meaning than "ask." Words are more than sequences of letters, and "ax" is drunk in from childhood. "Ax" is a word indelibly associated not just with asking but with black people asking. That sentiment alone is powerful enough to cut across conscious decisions about what is standard or proper.

"Ax," then, is as integral a part of being a black American as are subtle aspects of carriage, demeanor, humor and religious practice. "Ax" is a gospel chord in the form of a word, a facet of black being — which is precisely why black people can both make fun of and also regularly use "ax," even as college graduates.

Yet nothing can stop people from hearing "ax" as illiterate, which makes the word a small tragedy in its way. When a black speaker gets the most comfortable, the most articulate, the most herself — that is exactly when she is likely to slide in an "ax" for "ask." Immediately she sounds ignorant to any nonblack person who hears her, not to mention to quite a few black ones.

Yet I hope that my small contribution to the pro-axive literature might help some of us hear "ax" in a different way. The simple fact is that because "ax" is blackness, it has survived and will continue to.






And here is the link to the whole thing:

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/19/opinion/la-oe-mcwhorter-black-speech-ax-20140119

All this time we've been arguing over two different words. What a waste of time this thread has been.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"Y'all" is a contraction of two words (You and All), not the phonetic misspeaking of a word ("Ax" rather than "Ask.") Yes, there is a difference.

And what Southerner drops ls from the end of words? Sorry, but no.

"Aks" is not a "phonetic misspeaking" of the word ask, any more than "Wensday" is a phonetic misspeaking of the word Wednesday or "lawn-zher-ay" is a phonetic misspeaking of the word lingerie. (Or do you pronounce them Wed-ness-day and lin-dzher-ee?) What "aks" is, is the way some people/dialects pronounce the word that is spelled a-s-k.

This is a crappy argument. Clearly, you've never taken French language classes.

What does French have to do with the pronunciation of Wednesday? Not to mention that the word "lingerie" is not pronounced "lawn-zher-ay" in French.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the pp you are trying to elicit a response from but yes, I would be unhappy with the cheerleader twit too. Proper grammar for a teacher is a must. I don't care what they look like but they should be competent as well as possess the other qualities, kindness, love of children, etc. It's not racist to expect a teacher, of whatever ethnicity, to be well spoken. As a teacher they should be held to a higher standard. If I heard a teacher say "I might could" like a very well educated southern member of my family, I would cringe just as I do when my family member says it--and, by the way, she fits the bill of the southern school teacher hypothetical. No one's grammar is perfect but there is no reason that we should not all strive to and expect hat our teachers will speak correctly. I repeat this is not a race thing---so ridiculous!

It's interesting that you think that "beautiful, preppy sorority type who had attended Nashville's elite Harpeth Hall (or Charleston's Ashley Hall) prep school, and later graduated from the University of Virginia" (and may or may not have been a cheerleader) = twit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard rich, white folks use conversate, orientate, irregardless, could care less, etc etc.

AX is just a dialect. May not be awesome, but no worse than "warsh" (Baltimore), Birfday" (my upper PA in laws say this), or whatever. Really. You KNOW your kid is not going to come home saying "ax," so the only reason it bothers you is because...actually, I don't know why.

You idiot. "orientate" "irregardless" and "could care less" are all 100% grammatically correct.

Oriented. Regardless (the other only RECENTLY accepted due to rampant use). Could care less isn't what you use when you are saying that you CouldN'T care less.

Do you want to try writing that out again, in English this time?

Different poster. She/he is speaking English. I think you just find it sucks to be wrong.

And ANYBODY who has bothered to study linguistics, and not their own biases, knows that ax/ask is a dialect. And I posted this in the last thread--unless you say Feb-roo-ary, you are saying it wrong. And words like often can be pronounced multiple ways. It is language, not a learning disability as another ignorant poster said.

Check again - I said that all those examples are "grammatically correct". Whether the common usage is "could" or "couldn't" is not relevant to BOTH being GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT. So where am I wrong again? Oh yes, that would be no where.

They are NOT "grammatically correct." You are wrong about that.

Actually they are all "grammatically correct". Do you know what grammar means? I genuinely think you are confusing the rules of grammar with definitions and rules of "usage". It doesn't matter if the saying is wrong, or worded incorrectly, if it remains grammatically correct.