Kindle Books

Jenni wrote:

Down here a lot of people of color don't enunciate or don't know which direction the syllables go. They will often put the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable.

I heard a story on NPR Wednesday or Thursday about a 600 pound woman who was going in for stomach stapling.  It might have been in relation to a TV program about her.

Anyway, she was from Mississippi and it was almost impossible to understand her.  Her relatives and doctor were similarly impaired.  They dropped syllables, they slurred words, they spoke very rapidly with long pauses to gasp for air.

It was most unsettling. I said at the time, "That sounds like Honey Boo-Boo all grown up."

NoCoPilot wrote:

Jenni wrote:

Down here a lot of people of color don't enunciate or don't know which direction the syllables go. They will often put the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable.

I heard a story on NPR Wednesday or Thursday about a 600 pound woman who was going in for stomach stapling.  It might have been in relation to a TV program about her.

Anyway, she was from Mississippi and it was almost impossible to understand her.  Her relatives and doctor were similarly impaired.  They dropped syllables, they slurred words, they spoke very rapidly with long pauses to gasp for air.

It was most unsettling.  I said at the time, "That sounds like Honey Boo-Boo all grown up."

Yeah. Ben and I frequently get asked where we're from because we aren't quite as bad as most locals. I tried to head that shit off with my kids too, but you know one is inevitably going to talk like those around them.
I tend to chose words differently too. It's a trolley, not a cart, and soda not Coke. I intentionally mark myself as different because I find it embarrassing to talk like I'm just dirt dumb. Others see it as "puttin' on airs." Which typically means one is trying to be something they aren't- that's not the case with me- I am actually this educated.

Hence the controversy over Ebonics. If educated people choose to speak Ebonics in order to avoid "putting on airs," are they speaking a dialect or catering to the less-educated?

NoCoPilot wrote:

Hence the controversy over Ebonics.  If educated people choose to speak Ebonics in order to avoid "putting on airs," are they speaking a dialect or catering to the less-educated?

I think that's patronizing the less educated- hence my issue with it. I don't want to point out how they talk wrong to feel better than they are but to pull them up here with me. I feel those who act like they are like that but in private with people like me talk right are doing wrong.

African-American stars from another era -- Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby -- made a point of always speaking correctly and showing that they were capable or erudition as much as any white actor. They fought the stereotype.

More recent AA stars -- Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock -- talk like that in interviews but when doing shows in front of Black audiences, or playing low-life characters in a film, they lapse into Ebonics and reinforce the stereotype.

Does this encourage Black youth to not learn erudition and "proper" pronunciation? Is peer pressure considerable to "talk Black"? Are mothers who name their babies Deshawnda consigning them to a lifetime of second-rate jobs and financial hardship?

NoCoPilot wrote:

Does this encourage Black youth to not learn erudition and "proper" pronunciation?  Is peer pressure considerable to "talk Black"?

This occurs not just in black neighborhoods. It is common for people to assume the speech patterns of the society in which they live. This is especially true for young people. A young person who moves from, for example, California to the South, will probably soon find himself saying, "y'all."

Haha!
As if.

"As if"? I hate to admit it, Lisa, but that's what happened to me. After growing up in California, I lived in Oklahoma for my senior year of high school. I had to catch myself when I would start talking like one of the goobers.

_Howard wrote:

"As if"? I hate to admit it, Lisa, but that's what happened to me. After growing up in California, I lived in Oklahoma for my senior year of high school. I had to catch myself  when I would start talking like one of the goobers.

It is difficult! But on the up side it means if you move away from the goobers you can learn to speak well pretty quickly.