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

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=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! [/quote]

Just curious. Is all of your family well educated?  If your family member that uses "I might could" suddenly changed things up after going off to school, would her friends/family think that she was trying to separate herself from them?  Usually the local dialect/regional accents are not learned in a vacuum.  If most of your friends and family speak one way, it is noticiable if you start speaking differently ...in a way that sets you apart from everyone else.  I'm from Long Island so if I everyone is saying waaater and I ask for water with every syllable crisply enunciated it might appear that I am trying to erase any accent and possibly ashamed of my background.  I think there is some insecurity both ways that the family members/friends that use axe, fixin to, I might could, feel like you are trying to distance yourself from them/look down on them and there may be some truth to that.  You have to reconcile changing how you speak to improve how you are perceived by others (meaning you recognize others could think you are less educated or unintelligent speaking the way you grew up) with being able to see someone can be intelligent and well educated and still use "I might could" and still being proud of your friends and family.

So to the OP, I think it is a class thing if you feel the same way about the other examples like fixin to, dropped r's from Boston etc.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics