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for the past 50 years, American students were taught bullshit
edbro:
I disagree. I believe there has to be right ways to use the language and wrong ways. Just because one learns the wrong way from your parents doesn't automatically make it the right way. If you go to a poor, uneducated neighborhood you will hear the language spoken very differently than you would from a well-to-do and educated neighborhood. I will argue that just because you weren't taught the proper way to use the language doesn't make improper language proper. I doubt a book written in ebonics would ever be considered a literary classic.
kartal:
There is no difference between you and uneducated person. Statistical differences are artificial. An educated person might know 10.000 words meanwhile so called uneducated person might know only 2000. It makes no difference and should not be used to create "division" among societies.
So are you saying that a myth or story written or told by an african tribe that only uses 500 words cannot be called art of man? I think you might be surprised to know how much knowledge and wisdom can be fit in couple words or sentences. By making such claims you are blocking those people`s chance to create something.
I know it is very hard to convince some educated people about these issues because whole point of education is to season and structure people. I am not against education or something but sometimes I feel like people who call themslves educated became more strict and less free thinkers during their education when it comes to issues like that. Unfortunately critical thinking is not part of our perfect education systems and classes.
There is a right way to talk any language called the natural way which is learned and practiced by human cognition unconsciously. I support any attempt to understand such process, I am just against social, political and humanistic implications of those results. I hope it makes sense
J-Mac:
Not sure I'd agree there kartal, there has to be a 'right' way to say things otherwise the ambiguities of language would get out of hand. Also language rules were not decided by some elitist, they evolved over time with the language as spoken by whole populations. Who are we in this generation to turn our backs on the rules of a language much more ancient than ourselves.
And surely grammar is no more unnatural than language itself, they always go hand in hand.
-Eóin (April 19, 2009, 04:04 AM)
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Does following all the grammar rules really help eliminate ambiguities? And yes, the "language rules" were indeed decided by some elitists. The problem with such pedantry is that you seem to wish to disallow any further evolution of the language by preventing this generation, or any for that matter, from adding to the evolution.
Listen to Stephen Fry's podcasts on language. Very interesting.
Jim
edbro:
An educated person might know 10.000 words meanwhile so called uneducated person might know only 2000. It makes no difference and should not be used to create "division" among societies.
-kartal (April 19, 2009, 12:27 PM)
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The breadth of vocabulary is not the same as knowing proper grammar. You can use proper grammar knowing only a couple of hundred words. I don't think that knowing how to speak properly is used to create class divisions any more than knowing calculus is.
If you were going to read the Wall Street Journal for investment research, which would you tend to trust more:
- "We believe the future of the economy is on the upswing"
- "We be thinkin yo gonna have mo money nex year"
J-Mac:
An educated person might know 10.000 words meanwhile so called uneducated person might know only 2000. It makes no difference and should not be used to create "division" among societies.
-kartal (April 19, 2009, 12:27 PM)
--- End quote ---
The breadth of vocabulary is not the same as knowing proper grammar. You can use proper grammar knowing only a couple of hundred words. I don't think that knowing how to speak properly is used to create class divisions any more than knowing calculus is.
If you were going to read the Wall Street Journal for investment research, which would you tend to trust more:
- "We believe the future of the economy is on the upswing"
- "We be thinkin yo gonna have mo money nex year"
-edbro (April 19, 2009, 12:43 PM)
--- End quote ---
The economy? In the US? Whom to believe?? Bad example!
Jim
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