Attempted murder!

Morgan   Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:40 pm GMT
Do you agree with this?

To not know the forms of proper English usage is ignorant; to know them and then still not use them is attempted murder on the English language.
Malcolm   Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:02 pm GMT
Are you on any medications?
Johnny   Tue Jul 08, 2008 11:06 pm GMT
Oh my God, again this crap about proper English.
People speak however the hell they feel like it. Only grammar fanatics talk about proper English, and grammar fanatics are less than 0.1% of all the people in the world. So the truth is that nobody really cares about proper English, and the few people who care don't really know what it is.

To only accept the forms of some imaginary proper English is ignorant. That is ignorant. That makes one uneducated. That is pseudo-knowledge. Bullshit.
Guest   Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:19 am GMT
<People speak however the hell they feel like it. Only grammar fanatics talk about proper English>

I think you'll find that a hell of a lot of people talk about proper English. See these forums, for example.
Guest   Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:27 am GMT
What percentage of published material is written in non-standard English?
Guest   Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:42 pm GMT
About 23.7%
Malcolm   Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:10 pm GMT
<<I think you'll find that a hell of a lot of people talk about proper English. See these forums, for example.>>

Thanks Morgan. I agree with you. It's a shame that there is a forum set up to help non-English speakers learn a form of English that will help them communicate in a way that opens doors of opportunity for them. It would be much better to teach them to grunt and point.
Guest   Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:49 pm GMT
You have to understand, Morgan is a nutcase.
Morgan   Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:18 am GMT
<<It would be much better to teach them to grunt and point. >>

So for you speaking a dialect is just grunting and pointing, is it?
Guest   Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:27 am GMT
Yo Morgy ma boyzi wat waldza ya do if yu were in da univerzidy goina study zum english in zum english liderachur in all dat shiz yall en yo englizh prof spoke in wrot lyke diz yeh? Wuld you fink yousa waza lerning good dem englizh language? Wuld yu fink yousa geddin yo cash worf? Wuld youza be plizd wiv da levil of yo education man? YOu zee ma home boy, if i be dat dude in da englizh clazz wif da prof who write lyke diz yall i be preddi razzld up yall wif di biachiniz of da shiz of dat yall, donnna you agree wiv ma jivinz o yu gon keep it off wid dat shiz abut za dialectz be bedder an all dat nowhere nonsinz yeh?
Johnny   Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:11 am GMT
<<I think you'll find that a hell of a lot of people talk about proper English. See these forums, for example.>>

LOL, what the hell are you talking about? I never heard anyone talking about proper English on TV, or on the radio... This forum is just an insignificant part of the whole internet, and it's clearly a bunch of trolls and fanatics who don't have a clue what they are talking about. Unless someone wants to insist Usian is a common way to refer to Americans just because it's used by a lot of people (=assholes) here.

I agree with mjd on this:
<<I think it's important for those learning English to master both forms -- both colloquial and so-called "proper" English.>>
It is important to learn every aspect of English, if you are really interested in English, from 'whom" to "ain't", from clear slow speech to extreme reductions in fast speech, and accept regional differences. But I disagree on this:
<<A more appropriate characterization would be *annoying*, depending on the degree of the misuse.>>
"Misuse" is subjective, and so is the word "annoying". What is bad usage to you might sound normal to someone else, and vice versa. Take "Something between you and I" - how "wrong", annoying and appropriate it is, and to who, is highly debatable.
Guest   Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:14 am GMT
<<I never heard anyone talking about proper English on TV, or on the radio... >>

They don't talk so much about it because it just goes without saying... How many publications do you see in dialect?
Guest   Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:18 am GMT
<<I never heard anyone talking about proper English on TV, or on the radio... >>

That's because TV has become the domain of "improper" English.
Guest   Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:40 pm GMT
<<So for you speaking a dialect is just grunting and pointing, is it?>>

Actually I was referring to the approach this forum takes toward English learning. It encourages people to learn English rules that are widely accepted, thus helping them to navigate a wide spectrum social and business situations. I wasn't talking about dialects. That's your obsession. It wouldn't make sense to teach a new English speaker a dialect at first. Which dialect would be the best one to teach a new English learner? And where would the new English speaker, speaking only a dialect, practice his new language? Who would understand btu the banjo player from Deliverance?

So to say that for me a dialect is pointing and grunting is irrelevant to my post. But since you mention it... your comment is an unfair. A dialect is much more than pointing and grunting. Sometimes speaking a dialect also involves slobbering and making gibberish utterances, maybe with some clicking of the tongue. Nonverbal components of a dialect may include spastic movements of the hands, mouth or head, rolling of the head and lolling of the tongue between utterances and shuffling from foot to foot while looking at the ground.

In rare cases dialect speakers are capable of learning to mimic human speech if the are socialized correctly, but they will always bear the telltale signs of a dialect speaker, such as a low forehead, protruding occipital ridge, small chin and slumped posture, odd pronuciation of normal English words and an attention span of about 3 seconds. They make good banjo players and ditch diggers though.
Guest   Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:52 pm GMT
<<It encourages people to learn English rules that are widely accepted, thus helping them to navigate a wide spectrum social and business situations. >>

Is learning those rules enough then?