Racism/Discrimination Victim Questionaire
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com
and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
minority groups.
This questionaire addresses all sorts of dicrimination and harm therefrom,
hopefully without regard to what is being discriminated against (herein
[fitb]). Obviously, some discriminatory activities are much more harmfull
than others.
Do not feel that you have to post or mail an actual response, this
primarily is offered to spark [fitb]-blind discussion.
1) Do you consider your self a member of a "minority" group [fitb]?
2) Have you ever been teased because you were [fitb]?
3) Have you ever been verbally harassed because you were a [fitb]?
4) Have you ever been threatened because you were [fitb]?
5) Have you ever been physically assaulted because you were a [fitb]?
6) Have you ever been hospitalized due to an assault because you were
[fitb]?
7) Have you ever been tortured because you were [fitb]?
8) Has a member of your family ever been threatened or harmed because you
were [fitb]?
9) Have you ever been denied employment because you were [fitb]?
10) Have you ever been fired because you were [fitb]?
11) Have you ever been forced to quit a job because you were [fitb]?
12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
13) Have you ever been denied housing because you were [fitb]?
14) Have you ever been evicted because you were [fitb]?
15) Have you ever been watched or trailed because you were [fitb]?
16) Have you ever been stalked because you were [fitb]?
17) Have you ever been denied medical care because you were [fitb]?
18) Have you ever undergone unneccessary surgery because you were [fitb]?
19) Has your property ever been vandalized because you were [fitb]?
20) Has your property ever been stolen because you were [fitb]?
21) Has your travel ever been restricted because you were a [fitb]?
22) Have you been told "you aren't allowed here" because you were [fitb]?
23) Have you ever been thrown out of a place of business because you were
[fitb]?
24) Have you ever been arrested and/or accused of a crime because you were
[fitb] (regardless of official "charges")
25) Have you ever been held against your will because you were [fitb]?
26) Have you ever been libelled or slandered because you were a [fitb]?
Look at this for each minority you identify with, and even some you don't.
Then look at it as a whole, for yourself.
Ravan
--
Ravan Asteris rasteris / at \ rahul / dot \ net
(squish "/ and \" to make symbols like "&")
http://www.rahul.net/rasteris/
Shandon
om writes
>Since the subject of racism/sexism/dicrimination has come up, I sat down
>and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
>discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
>minority groups.
<snip>
"Thank you, Ravan. This looks very comprehensive. If this were a
survey _per se_, I doubt that even a group as relatively gross in its
traffic as alt.callahans could generate statistically significant
results. For the purpose for which you intend it, however, it might -
one way and another - be a real eye-opener, irrespective of how many
full responses are actually posted.
"BOYC for your trouble?"
Cheers,
--
Gray
http://www.quilpole.demon.co.uk
"She does not get eaten by the sharks at this time."
- William Goldman, _The Princess Bride_.
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com
> "Thank you, Ravan. This looks very comprehensive. If this were a
> survey _per se_, I doubt that even a group as relatively gross in its
> traffic as alt.callahans could generate statistically significant
> results. For the purpose for which you intend it, however, it might -
> one way and another - be a real eye-opener, irrespective of how many
> full responses are actually posted.
> "BOYC for your trouble?"
Thank you. Scotch and water.
I guess that to me what matters is what kind of discrimination the person
has actually suffered, not their simple "perception" of being a minority.
For example, suppose I had six toes, but no one made an issue of it
because I always wore shoes? The only discrimination that I might
actually suffer would be:
1) difficulty buying shoes wide enough,
2) being deemed unsuitable for the military, (denied a job)
3) getting weird reactions from medical personnel (denied or excessive
medical treatment).
This is a trivial example, admittedly, but even the smallest "differences"
in appearance in our society (like a "jewish" nose, or "oriental" eyes)
can result in radically different treatment from some people.
Susan Cohen
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com wrote:
So what if you answered yes to more than half of your questionaire,
would you consider that person to be a discriminated-against-minority?
Susan
Leonard Erickson
> Since the subject of racism/sexism/dicrimination has come up, I sat down
> and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
> discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
> minority groups.
>
> This questionaire addresses all sorts of dicrimination and harm therefrom,
> hopefully without regard to what is being discriminated against (herein
> [fitb]). Obviously, some discriminatory activities are much more harmfull
> than others.
>
> Do not feel that you have to post or mail an actual response, this
> primarily is offered to spark [fitb]-blind discussion.
>
>
> 1) Do you consider your self a member of a "minority" group [fitb]?
yes, several.
> 2) Have you ever been teased because you were [fitb]?
Yes (nerd)
> 3) Have you ever been verbally harassed because you were a [fitb]?
yes (nerd)
> 4) Have you ever been threatened because you were [fitb]?
yes (sexual orientation)
> 5) Have you ever been physically assaulted because you were a [fitb]?
yes (nerd)
> 6) Have you ever been hospitalized due to an assault because you were
> [fitb]?
No.
> 7) Have you ever been tortured because you were [fitb]?
Not exactly.
> 8) Has a member of your family ever been threatened or harmed because you
> were [fitb]?
No.
> 9) Have you ever been denied employment because you were [fitb]?
Not sure.
> 10) Have you ever been fired because you were [fitb]?
Not sure.
> 11) Have you ever been forced to quit a job because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 13) Have you ever been denied housing because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 14) Have you ever been evicted because you were [fitb]?
no.
> 15) Have you ever been watched or trailed because you were [fitb]?
yes (nerd)
> 16) Have you ever been stalked because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 17) Have you ever been denied medical care because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 18) Have you ever undergone unneccessary surgery because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 19) Has your property ever been vandalized because you were [fitb]?
Yes (nerd)
> 20) Has your property ever been stolen because you were [fitb]?
Yes (nerd)
> 21) Has your travel ever been restricted because you were a [fitb]?
No.
> 22) Have you been told "you aren't allowed here" because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 23) Have you ever been thrown out of a place of business because you were
> [fitb]?
No.
> 24) Have you ever been arrested and/or accused of a crime because you were
> [fitb] (regardless of official "charges")
No.
> 25) Have you ever been held against your will because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 26) Have you ever been libelled or slandered because you were a [fitb]?
Yes (sexual orientaion)
> Look at this for each minority you identify with, and even some you don't.
It'd be almost all "yes" for "group" as "sexual orientation". As in I
know far too many folks in the minority who can answer yes.
> Then look at it as a whole, for yourself.
Personally, only the ones I marked yes apply.
--
Leonard Erickson (aka Nemo) kal...@krypton.rain.com
"I would not take a bet against the existence of time machines.
My opponent might have seen the future and know the answer."
-- Stephen Hawking
AFol...@webtv.net
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com wrote:
> Since the subject of racism/sexism/dicrimination has come up, I sat down
> and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
> discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
> minority groups.
>
> This questionaire addresses all sorts of dicrimination and harm therefrom,
> hopefully without regard to what is being discriminated against (herein
> [fitb]). Obviously, some discriminatory activities are much more harmfull
> than others.
>
> Do not feel that you have to post or mail an actual response, this
> primarily is offered to spark [fitb]-blind discussion.
Hmm, interesting. I don't particularly identify with any socially-defined
minority in the U.S.; just yer basic elderly white male, with some (1/8?)
Osage Indian ancestry (though nothing that I greatly identify with
culturally, or that would be likely to infuence others' reactions to me.
In general, I think it would be a "no" across the board, with some slight
uncertainty on:
> 2) Have you ever been teased because you were [fitb]?
Well, yeah, I've even gotten "gee, sometimes I almost forget you're white"
from black co-workers and cherished friends (Chicago, late Sixties). But
"teased" is the operative word. It was not malicious.
> 5) Have you ever been physically assaulted because you were a [fitb]?
I doubt it. In a longish life, I've been the guest of honor at two muggings.
In one case, the host was a lower-class urban black, in the other, a Honduran
illegal immigrant (the latter did two years for his trouble). However, in
each case, I imagine I was selected because I was considered likely to have
something worth stealing, not because of race per se.
> 18) Have you ever undergone unneccessary surgery because you were [fitb]?
No; but this is an interesting and scary category. Were you thinking of the
Bircher MDs in North Carolina some years back who made sterilization a
precondition for providing "pro bono" services to black welfare patients?
> 22) Have you been told "you aren't allowed here" because you were [fitb]?
This one, emphatically, no. I've had several pleasant and welcoming
experiences in black jazz clubs and soul food restauants in Chicago in the
Sixties and Seventies, when and where sensitivities to such things might have
been presumed to have been at their height.
--
Alan Follett
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Susan Cohen
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com wrote:
> 1) Do you consider your self a member of a "minority" group [fitb]?
Yes. Jew/woman.
> 2) Have you ever been teased because you were [fitb]?
Yes - both
> 3) Have you ever been verbally harassed because you were a [fitb]?
Yes - both
> 4) Have you ever been threatened because you were [fitb]?
Yes - both
> 5) Have you ever been physically assaulted because you were a [fitb]?
Yes - woman
> 6) Have you ever been hospitalized due to an assault because you were
> [fitb]?
No.
> 7) Have you ever been tortured because you were [fitb]?
Depends on what you mean by torture. Mentally, yes, both.
> 8) Has a member of your family ever been threatened or harmed because you
> were [fitb]?
Yes - Jew.
> 9) Have you ever been denied employment because you were [fitb]?
Yes - both
> 10) Have you ever been fired because you were [fitb]?
Yes - Jew - though I couldn't prove it - it was obvious to everyone, but
unprovable.
> 11) Have you ever been forced to quit a job because you were [fitb]?
Yes - woman.
> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
No, but I have been paid less than a man for doing the exact same work.
> 13) Have you ever been denied housing because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 14) Have you ever been evicted because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 15) Have you ever been watched or trailed because you were [fitb]?
Oh, yes -woman.
> 16) Have you ever been stalked because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 17) Have you ever been denied medical care because you were [fitb]?
No.
> 18) Have you ever undergone unneccessary surgery because you were [fitb]?
No (though I can't imagine how this would pertain to anything but gender)
> 19) Has your property ever been vandalized because you were [fitb]?
Yes - both. (A school locker isn't necessarily property, but they
did it because it was mine)
> 20) Has your property ever been stolen because you were [fitb]?
I'm not sure.
> 21) Has your travel ever been restricted because you were a [fitb]?
No.
> 22) Have you been told "you aren't allowed here" because you were [fitb]?
I know better than to try to go to those places.
> 23) Have you ever been thrown out of a place of business because you were
> [fitb]?
No.
> 24) Have you ever been arrested and/or accused of a crime because you were
> [fitb] (regardless of official "charges")
Oh, no.
> 25) Have you ever been held against your will because you were [fitb]?
Yes - woman (Okay, it was when I was being pinned down
and beaten up by three guys - so maybe no)
> 26) Have you ever been libelled or slandered because you were a [fitb]?
Yes - both.
> Look at this for each minority you identify with, and even some you don't.
Oh, always.
> Then look at it as a whole, for yourself.
Okay.
Susan
Eileen
be glad to help with these two.
Susan Cohen wrote:
>
> > 16) Have you ever been stalked because you were [fitb]?
>
> No.
>
> > 20) Has your property ever been stolen because you were [fitb]?
>
> I'm not sure.
-Eileen (willing to follow and rob anyone with a chocolate orange...ok,
maybe follow and hug until they give in and share at least)
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com
> So what if you answered yes to more than half of your questionaire,
> would you consider that person to be a discriminated-against-minority?
Probably, or a member of several "minorly" discriminated against
minorities at once. Mind, no discrimination is truly minor, but some is
more long term damaging than others.
What is amazing is how many questions I end up answering "yes" to, and I
don't usually see myself as disadvantaged.
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com
> Hmm, interesting. I don't particularly identify with any socially-defined
> minority in the U.S.; just yer basic elderly white male, with some (1/8?)
> Osage Indian ancestry (though nothing that I greatly identify with
> culturally, or that would be likely to infuence others' reactions to me.
[snip]
> > 18) Have you ever undergone unneccessary surgery because you were [fitb]?
> No; but this is an interesting and scary category. Were you thinking of the
> Bircher MDs in North Carolina some years back who made sterilization a
> precondition for providing "pro bono" services to black welfare patients?
I was thinking of that, and the tendency for disabled people to be pushed
toward sterilization also.
al...@nospam.takea.guess.cornell.edu
>> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
>
>No, but I have been paid less than a man for doing the exact same work.
What was the job? If it was company policy please post their name. I don't
like companies with that policy.
___________
Adam Littman / ^ \
AL...@cornell.edu /\ / \ /\
/__\__/___\__/__\
/ \( ) ( )/ \
\ /\ o /\ /
\ / \( )/ \ /
"Four minutes twenty-two seconds, \/____\_/____\/
Baldric, you owe me a groat" \ \ /
--Blackadder \ / \ /
---------
John Palmer
>Since the subject of racism/sexism/dicrimination has come up, I sat down
>and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
>discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
>minority groups.
It's not bad, but it misses some things.
Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
Is your natural appearance considered strange or weird, and often
considered unattractive to such a degree that many people of your type
feel urges to modify their appearance to an unnatural standard?
Do people assume certain problems belong to "your people"?
For gay people semi-exclusively, "are slang terms describing your
sexual preference accepted as more or less universal insults?"
There are others, and these have the disadvantage of being
"societal" constructs to some degree, and not singular acts of people.
The Trinker
John Palmer wrote:
> The idea is (or should be) to have the teacher understand that
> "she be at work" is as natural to many black people as "y'all have
> unusual speech patterns in the northern states" is to a person from
> the South.
>
> The difference is the difference between "A lot of people use
> that, but in standard English, "you" is both the singular and the
> plural" and "she be at work? She BE at work? EVERYONE knows it's
> supposed to be "she *IS* at work". Learn your conjugations!"
You're also forgetting that there's actually a rigorous and
consistent grammar to "Ebonics"/black English vernacular/
black English/etc.
"be" and "is" actually *both* occur in black English, and mean
two different things. "be" is used to mean a verb construction
which does not exist in standard English.
> >>Is your natural appearance considered strange or weird, and often
> >>considered unattractive to such a degree that many people of your type
> >>feel urges to modify their appearance to an unnatural standard?
> >
> >"This can be extraordinarily subjective, starting with the definition of
> >natural.
>
> Nod, and it's most certainly not quantifiable as individual
> action. But it can lead to a very quiet, very unconscious sort of
> discrimination.
You *can* say "unnatural". If I take my eyes, and have them
surgically altered to conform to "white" eyeshape, or have my
nose done to conform to a concept of "white", it's unnatural.
Noah said:
> >"That's very closely related to racism. And a trap into which
> >individualists don't fall.
>
> Well, probably not "self aware, rational thinking
> individualists". I'm always nervous about saying anything like that
> as a generality.
But individualists *do* fall into the idea that because *one*
individual managed to succeed, that every other individual should,
as well, and individualists IME often fail to consider that people
*as groups* often are not accorded the same basic starting point
that people in other groups are accorded.
The Trinker
--
spam filtered. To send e-mail remove the spamtrap.
The Trinker
Tedi Melton wrote:
[massive snippage]
>
> Third, and lastly, because I've decided to be relatively brief in spite
> of having many things to say on this issue...the measure failed, and I
> am not sure it failed rightly, that is, for the reasons it should have,
> but here is my take on why we don't/should not teach students with Black
> English (or any other dialect/language).
>
> Teaching is much less about the language used when it is presented as it
> is the enthusiasm and excitement behind the presentation. I have
> interested "disadvantaged" students in the Iliad by merely telling them
> what was going on in terms they could understand. We need passion in
> our schools systems...a love of learning and a willingness to pass this
> love onto others.
>
> We can't teach Black English and not teach Georgia South, or midwestern,
> or Vermont New England, or Southwestern TexMex. Black English is a
> dialect of English. It is not a separate language. I do not disagree
> that non-English speaking students should be helped to learn English.
> But we have every language in the world in this nation. We can't teach
> them all in the regular classroom. We have to use Standard English.
> We've accomodated Spanish. But I'm not even sure we should have done
> that.
Ah, but in *Oakland*, where this was being discussed, Black English
is one of the major language groups. (The others, off the top of
my head, and not necessarily accurately, include various dialects
of Chinese.)
They were actually going to do some very good teaching of standard
English to these children. I think the initial idea was very good.
The politicos in Oakland got a little too enthusiastic, though, and
acted as though Black English were the *natural* language of all
black children. Pretty stupid, in my opinion.
> Because...we are ultimately an English speaking nation and we are a
Are we?
> "free market" economy and Darwinian to the extreme in that if you can't
> make it in the general atmosphere you might as well settle for cleaning
> toilets. And yes, someone has to, I clean my own, but I'm sure someone
> else cleans the one at the rest stop. And I'm glad they do. Thanks,
> whoever you are. Still, we have to find our own level. And not
> everyone is going to be a rocket scientist.
>
> So if you want your children to be competitive and not clean rest stop
> toilets, you have to teach them the language of the successful. And how
> to get along, and how to listen to the teachers that are in love with
> learning and to learn what you can from the ones who aren't, and to dig
> in and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps because there isn't a
> social program in the world that can compete with good solid parenting
> and its about time someone said that and so I have. Because I love my
> kids. And wish more people did.
>
> Dr2b
> (who went off on a wild rant and will be much better in the morning, she
> swears)
But, in the interest of teaching *English*, we fail to teach
children other languages. I think this is as great a failing
as the inadequate teaching of English to any child.
Shannon West
<al...@nospam.takea.guess.cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:7t5sa3$o9o$1...@news01.cit.cornell.edu...
> In article <37F4F011...@his.com>, fla...@hers.com wrote:
>
> >> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
> >
> >No, but I have been paid less than a man for doing the exact same work.
>
> What was the job? If it was company policy please post their name. I don't
> like companies with that policy.
Please DON'T!!! You'd open yourself up to all sorts of legal issues.
--
MorphWench ~ Gratch
"I never learned nothin' from playin' it safe
I say fate should not tempt me"
Mary Chapin Carpenter - I Take My Chances
I p&e by default. Please post & e-mail anything you want me to see.
Thanks.
Noah Singman
> It's not bad, but it misses some things.
>Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
>derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
>regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
>to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
>who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
"I presume you're referring to the so-called 'Ebonics' initiative in the
Oakland Public Schools. It caused an uproar because people thought it meant
that teachers, instead of teaching Standard American English (SAE), were
going to teach using the poor grammar, spelling, punctuation and diction
that has come to be called 'Ebonics.' The conventional wisdom is that it
shouldn't have caused an uproar because it was supposed to be used only to
bring students into using SAE."
"However, I disagree, so you might want to keep those beverages. A teacher
is setting examples by everything they do, just as a parent is. When a
student in any class (including math or the sciences) makes an error
speaking or writing, the teacher must immediately recognize it, and correct
it. Not because the students are stupid; they may be very intelligent. But
they are usually ignorant. A regionalism would be using soda instead of
pop, or perhaps an accent. Even slang, perhaps. But failing to conjugate a
verb? Errors in agreement? Using superfluous prepositions? No."
>Is your natural appearance considered strange or weird, and often
>considered unattractive to such a degree that many people of your type
>feel urges to modify their appearance to an unnatural standard?
"This can be extraordinarily subjective, starting with the definition of
natural. On the one hand, I agree with those who believe that since we
humans are part of nature, a city is no more unnatural than a beaver dam or
a bird's nest. But if someone has decent personal hygiene, how they wear
their hair or clothes should not matter significantly."
>Do people assume certain problems belong to "your people"?
"That's very closely related to racism. And a trap into which
individualists don't fall. We would never ascribe to a group behavioral
characteristics perceived in some individuals identified as part of that
group."
Noah
John Palmer
wrote:
>John Palmer wrote:
>> It's not bad, but it misses some things.
>
>>Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
>>derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
>>regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
>>to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
>>who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
>
>"I presume you're referring to the so-called 'Ebonics' initiative in the
>Oakland Public Schools. It caused an uproar because people thought it meant
>that teachers, instead of teaching Standard American English (SAE), were
>going to teach using the poor grammar, spelling, punctuation and diction
>that has come to be called 'Ebonics.' The conventional wisdom is that it
>shouldn't have caused an uproar because it was supposed to be used only to
>bring students into using SAE."
More importantly, it was supposed to help teachers understand
the regionalism-equivalents (like "y'all" in the South or the lack of
gerunds in Ohio and possibly other places ("These windows need washed"
rather than "need washing" or "need to be washed") as things that
people hear every day and hence sound perfectly natural, and are, in
many cases, perfectly understandable, but are simply not 'standard'.
(I say "regionalism equivalents" because it's not a strictly regional
thing. There are some similarities across the country.)
The idea is (or should be) to have the teacher understand that
"she be at work" is as natural to many black people as "y'all have
unusual speech patterns in the northern states" is to a person from
the South.
The difference is the difference between "A lot of people use
that, but in standard English, "you" is both the singular and the
plural" and "she be at work? She BE at work? EVERYONE knows it's
supposed to be "she *IS* at work". Learn your conjugations!"
>"However, I disagree, so you might want to keep those beverages. A teacher
>is setting examples by everything they do, just as a parent is. When a
>student in any class (including math or the sciences) makes an error
>speaking or writing, the teacher must immediately recognize it, and correct
>it. Not because the students are stupid; they may be very intelligent. But
>they are usually ignorant.
And that is part of the problem. In this case it's not even
(necessarily) ignorance. I'll guarantee you a lot of southerners know
damn well that "you" refers to both singular and plural forms, and
still say "y'all", generally from habit (or as a way to speak
'normally' rather than 'properly' when "proper" might create some
distance to the listener).
I'm sure it's not the case in all situations, but I feel pretty
certain that a student can feel the difference between the implied "in
this classroom, we'll stick to standard words and constructions" and
the implied "you have to learn to speak correctly."
>A regionalism would be using soda instead of
>pop, or perhaps an accent.
The former, yes, the latter, no (unless you're referring to
specific pronunciations, which aren't quite what I'm thinking of).
> Even slang, perhaps. But failing to conjugate a
>verb? Errors in agreement? Using superfluous prepositions? No."
Why not? If a large number of people speak that way, use those
words, and have perfect understanding of that, and, most importantly,
if people grow up hearing that as "normal" around their families and
friends, and if it forms a quantifiable dialect, how is that different
from a specific set of shortcuts and changes to a language that occur
in a region?
>>Is your natural appearance considered strange or weird, and often
>>considered unattractive to such a degree that many people of your type
>>feel urges to modify their appearance to an unnatural standard?
>
>"This can be extraordinarily subjective, starting with the definition of
>natural.
Nod, and it's most certainly not quantifiable as individual
action. But it can lead to a very quiet, very unconscious sort of
discrimination.
>>Do people assume certain problems belong to "your people"?
>
>"That's very closely related to racism. And a trap into which
>individualists don't fall.
Well, probably not "self aware, rational thinking
individualists". I'm always nervous about saying anything like that
as a generality.
--
Everything I needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten. Like: we only
truly die when we run out of love. Strangely, though, giving love replenishes
our supply as much or more than accepting it does.
Tedi Melton
>
> On 29 Sep 1999 23:47:49 GMT, c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com wrote:
>
> >Since the subject of racism/sexism/dicrimination has come up, I sat down
> >and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
> >discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
> >minority groups.
>
>
> Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
> derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
> regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
> to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
> who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
Dr2b jumps up and down, her hand waving wildly and screams, "I know! I
know!"
The school board of Oakland County (CA) was trying to pass a bit of
legislation allowing them to teach students in "Black English" (about 2
years ago, iirc) under bilingual education statutes.
In a former life, I was a linguist, although now I'm just lingual. But
the problems I perceived within this action are manifold. As are the
considerations. Bear with me.
First, the general perception that Black English is just "bad English"
when it is in fact a recognized dialect by most respected linguists and
those who teach linguistics. Black English has grammatical rules and
linguistic origins just like any other dialect, but our culture teaches
us that it is low class and not upwardly mobile to celebrate and adhere
to such a dialect.
Second, the public outrage almost never touched upon the fact that in
the US, there are many dialects, languages and cultures. Our education
system is overrun by lobbying factions to the point where it's near
impossible to teach anyone anything, let alone worry about whether they
say "cent" or "cents" when referring to multiple pennies when we have to
check and see if they are wearing a black trenchcoat and driving a BMW.
Where are the parents? Someone please tell me.
Third, and lastly, because I've decided to be relatively brief in spite
of having many things to say on this issue...the measure failed, and I
am not sure it failed rightly, that is, for the reasons it should have,
but here is my take on why we don't/should not teach students with Black
English (or any other dialect/language).
Teaching is much less about the language used when it is presented as it
is the enthusiasm and excitement behind the presentation. I have
interested "disadvantaged" students in the Iliad by merely telling them
what was going on in terms they could understand. We need passion in
our schools systems...a love of learning and a willingness to pass this
love onto others.
We can't teach Black English and not teach Georgia South, or midwestern,
or Vermont New England, or Southwestern TexMex. Black English is a
dialect of English. It is not a separate language. I do not disagree
that non-English speaking students should be helped to learn English.
But we have every language in the world in this nation. We can't teach
them all in the regular classroom. We have to use Standard English.
We've accomodated Spanish. But I'm not even sure we should have done
that.
Because...we are ultimately an English speaking nation and we are a
John Palmer
<k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
>
>
>John Palmer wrote:
>
>> The idea is (or should be) to have the teacher understand that
>> "she be at work" is as natural to many black people as "y'all have
>> unusual speech patterns in the northern states" is to a person from
>> the South.
>>
>> The difference is the difference between "A lot of people use
>> that, but in standard English, "you" is both the singular and the
>> plural" and "she be at work? She BE at work? EVERYONE knows it's
>> supposed to be "she *IS* at work". Learn your conjugations!"
>
>You're also forgetting that there's actually a rigorous and
>consistent grammar to "Ebonics"/black English vernacular/
>black English/etc.
No, I'm not forgetting that; in fact, in at least one draft, I
called it a quantifiable dialect (by which I meant it had a consistent
(if not 'rigorous' and I'm not sure I believe in rigorous for grammar)
grammar.
>
>"be" and "is" actually *both* occur in black English, and mean
>two different things. "be" is used to mean a verb construction
>which does not exist in standard English.
Well, I've heard 'be' in something not unlike the example I
used, which is the only reason I used it. (Either that, or I have a
strong false memory of having heard it used that way. In any case, I
tried to use an example that I knew 'really existed'.)
>> >>Is your natural appearance considered strange or weird, and often
>> >>considered unattractive to such a degree that many people of your type
>> >>feel urges to modify their appearance to an unnatural standard?
>> >
>> >"This can be extraordinarily subjective, starting with the definition of
>> >natural.
>>
>> Nod, and it's most certainly not quantifiable as individual
>> action. But it can lead to a very quiet, very unconscious sort of
>> discrimination.
>
>You *can* say "unnatural". If I take my eyes, and have them
>surgically altered to conform to "white" eyeshape, or have my
>nose done to conform to a concept of "white", it's unnatural.
I'm not sure if you're understanding that I'm agreeing with
Noah that the question of whether your 'natural' appearance is
considered unattractive can be extraordinarily subjective, and what is
"natural" can be considered subjective as well.
Yes, there are things that you can say are "unnatural" in the
sense that they wouldn't occur without outside intervention, but there
are a lot of things that I was thinking of that might change (at least
partially) due to 'natural' forces. (The one I was thinking of as
being important was weight/body shape)
>Noah said:
>> >"That's very closely related to racism. And a trap into which
>> >individualists don't fall.
>>
>> Well, probably not "self aware, rational thinking
>> individualists". I'm always nervous about saying anything like that
>> as a generality.
>
>But individualists *do* fall into the idea that because *one*
>individual managed to succeed, that every other individual should,
>as well, and individualists IME often fail to consider that people
>*as groups* often are not accorded the same basic starting point
>that people in other groups are accorded.
Well, I don't think "self aware, rational thinking
individualists" would fall into that trap either, but that's more a
prejudice about where self-awareness and rational thought would take
you.
John Palmer
wrote:
>John Palmer wrote:
>>
>>
>> Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
>> derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
>> regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
>> to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
>> who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
>
>Dr2b jumps up and down, her hand waving wildly and screams, "I know! I
>know!"
>
>The school board of Oakland County (CA) was trying to pass a bit of
>legislation allowing them to teach students in "Black English" (about 2
>years ago, iirc) under bilingual education statutes.
Erm. Not what I heard. I heard that they were trying to
recognize "Black English", not teach in it, and certainly not in any
"bilingual" way. Just recognition that it's a dialect that's seen as
"natural" by a lot of people, the same way that (as I mentioned to
Noah) "y'all" is natural to Southern folk and "that car needs washed"
is natural to a lot of Ohioans (and others?).
Susan Cohen
John Palmer wrote:
> On 29 Sep 1999 23:47:49 GMT, c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com wrote:
>
> >Since the subject of racism/sexism/dicrimination has come up, I sat down
> >and cobbled together a questionaire that hopefully measures how much
> >discrimination you have suffered because of being a member of one or more
> >minority groups.
>
> It's not bad, but it misses some things.
>
> Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
> derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
> regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
> to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
> who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
I figure you mean "Ebonics", & I'm not sure why it shouldn't have
caused an uproar. Weren't they trying to "invent" something to study
in order to get more money for the school?
> Is your natural appearance considered strange or weird, and often
> considered unattractive to such a degree that many people of your type
> feel urges to modify their appearance to an unnatural standard?
This is a good one.
> Do people assume certain problems belong to "your people"?
Yes. :-)
> For gay people semi-exclusively, "are slang terms describing your
> sexual preference accepted as more or less universal insults?"
Actually, references to genitalia are insults, and thus applicable for
both men & women to be victimized by their utterance.
> There are others, and these have the disadvantage of being
> "societal" constructs to some degree, and not singular acts of people.
Very important for a crime classification.
Susan
Susan Cohen
al...@nospam.takea.guess.cornell.edu wrote:
> In article <37F4F011...@his.com>, fla...@hers.com wrote:
>
> >> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
> >
> >No, but I have been paid less than a man for doing the exact same work.
>
> What was the job? If it was company policy please post their name. I don't
> like companies with that policy.
Oh, it was "Bojangles" But they're out of business now.
They *had* a policy of "Don't tell anyone how much you make" -
which, of course, made me instantly suspcious & I casually asked
someone I thought wouldn't think fast - and hit the "jackpot".
They *said* that "the guy had more experience than I did."
Which was only true if you took a narrow view of his experiences
versus mine. But they called him into the office & chewed him out
for telling me. I ended up quitting anyway - my supervisor was on
botice, having a sexual harassment case against him (grabbed a
girl in the walk-in) & was still making sexual jokes *at* me. I knew
I *could* fight it - but knew I couldn't afford to give all the time to
that instead of actually making *money* elsewhere!
Thanks for asking, though!
Susan
Scott H. Perlman
>Tedi Melton wrote:
>[massive snippage]
>>
>> We can't teach Black English and not teach Georgia South, or midwestern,
>> or Vermont New England, or Southwestern TexMex. Black English is a
>> dialect of English. It is not a separate language. I do not disagree
>> that non-English speaking students should be helped to learn English.
>> But we have every language in the world in this nation. We can't teach
>> them all in the regular classroom. We have to use Standard English.
>> We've accomodated Spanish. But I'm not even sure we should have done
>> that.
>
>is one of the major language groups. (The others, off the top of
>my head, and not necessarily accurately, include various dialects
>of Chinese.)
And as Tedi said "I'm not even sure we should have done that"
>They were actually going to do some very good teaching of standard
>English to these children. I think the initial idea was very good.
>The politicos in Oakland got a little too enthusiastic, though, and
>acted as though Black English were the *natural* language of all
>black children. Pretty stupid, in my opinion.
I agree with this.
>> Because...we are ultimately an English speaking nation and we are a
>
>Are we?
Yes the US is. For all that there are pockets where it is a minority
language the US is an English Speaking Nation. The majority of the US
speaks English, signage and enterntainment is in English. If you
travel outside the country and say you are American you are expected to
speak English. Higher education is in English.
Desireable or not, at them moment, the US is an English speaking
country.
[More Snippage]
>>
>> So if you want your children to be competitive and not clean rest stop
>> toilets, you have to teach them the language of the successful. And how
>> to get along, and how to listen to the teachers that are in love with
>> learning and to learn what you can from the ones who aren't, and to dig
>> in and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps because there isn't a
>> social program in the world that can compete with good solid parenting
>> and its about time someone said that and so I have. Because I love my
>> kids. And wish more people did.
>>
>
>But, in the interest of teaching *English*, we fail to teach
>children other languages. I think this is as great a failing
>as the inadequate teaching of English to any child.
>
This is a seperate argument, and one I agree with as well. I am still
working to gain a measure of fluency in a foreign language, and I
didn't choose one thats easy for an English speaker. (In as much as
any are)
There are several issues addressed peripherally here.
1) The US is an English speaking Country.
a) Is this desireable? Do we want to change it?
2) Ebonics is a viable dialect of English.
3) Education in the US Should teach Standard English
4) Multiple language capability is important.
If we mix these up, we can wind up agreeing with each others ideas but
having severe misinterpretation problems.
-Scott
--
I am trying to have a thought.
(after several hours of being drilled by Melissa Dexter, you try)
Scott per...@cgicafe.com
John Palmer
wrote:
>John Palmer wrote:
>
>> On 29 Sep 1999 23:47:49 GMT, c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com wrote:
>> Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
>> derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
>> regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
>> to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
>> who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
>
>I figure you mean "Ebonics", & I'm not sure why it shouldn't have
>caused an uproar. Weren't they trying to "invent" something to study
>in order to get more money for the school?
Nope. They were declaring that it existed, and that it was
quantifiable. They said it was "genetic" which caused no end of
grief, but "genetic" in the context says that it was an evolving
language.
The controversial portion was that they declared it a language
equal to any other. My guess is that they intended to incorporate the
specific situations dealing with a language (i.e.: I doubt that they
were making up "special rights" and were instead incorporating, word
for word, the same rights of other language speakers.)
For example, if a child could not understand proper English
because s/he was raised speaking Spanish, and that child was eligible
for benefits of some form (tutoring, etc.), the same would hold for a
child with similar problems who grew up speaking Ebonics. It also
specifically said that this would *NOT* mean that parents would be
shut out of other methods of dealing with a child's language problems
- just that a new option was open.
Also, since a teacher gets some benefits for learning, say,
Spanish, a similar set of benefits would hold for a teacher who
studied Ebonics.
The final resolution was greatly scaled back, and simply
declared that Ebonics existed and was part of many people's culture.
Austin Ziegler
> Dr2B:
>> John Palmer wrote:
>>> Are relatively harmless bits of 'culture' such as speech patterns
>>> derided as stupid and/or 'just plain wrong', rather than accepted as a
>>> regionalism? (Beverage of choice to the first few who correctly point
>>> to the uproar this one caused. Multiple beverages of choice to those
>>> who suddenly realize why it shouldn't have caused an uproar.)
>> know!"
>>
>> The school board of Oakland County (CA) was trying to pass a bit of
>> legislation allowing them to teach students in "Black English" (about 2
>> years ago, iirc) under bilingual education statutes.
>
> Erm. Not what I heard. I heard that they were trying to
> recognize "Black English", not teach in it, and certainly not in any
> "bilingual" way. Just recognition that it's a dialect that's seen as
> "natural" by a lot of people, the same way that (as I mentioned to
> Noah) "y'all" is natural to Southern folk and "that car needs washed"
> is natural to a lot of Ohioans (and others?).
"The motion was to allow ESL (in this case, SAESL) funding for inner city
black children who were more comfortable in BAE. This, of course, was a
brilliant idea by the Oakland County school board, because the very schools
that they were trying to help were the poorest schools in the district.
This whole fight was about the fact that lots of folks have just given up
and decided that a whole group of kids aren't worth educating. Since these
are majority black schools, one has to wonder if there isn't some latent
racism there."
-f
--
austin ziegler * fant0me(at)the(dash)wire(d0t)c0m * Ni bhionn an rath ach
ICQ#25o49818 (H) * aziegler(at)s0lect(d0t)c0m * mar a mbionn an smacht
ICQ#21o88733 (W) * fant0me526(at)yah00(d0t)c0m * (There is no Luck
AIM Fant0me526 *-s/0/o/g--------&&--------s/o/0/g-* without Discipline)
Toronto.ON.ca * I speak for myself alone *-----------------------
PGP *** 7FDA ECE7 6C30 2356 17D3 17A1 C030 F921 82EF E7F8 *** 6.5.1
Lee S. Billings
>
>
>
>al...@nospam.takea.guess.cornell.edu wrote:
>
>> In article <37F4F011...@his.com>, fla...@hers.com wrote:
>>
>> >> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
>> >
>> >No, but I have been paid less than a man for doing the exact same
work.
>>
>> What was the job? If it was company policy please post their name. I
don't
>> like companies with that policy.
>
>Oh, it was "Bojangles" But they're out of business now.
Um... hate to tell you, but unless that's happened in the past 2 years
they're still around. Q'vaD could tell us for sure...
Celine
--
"Art comes from the heart, but the heart is instructed by the culture."
-- Janet Kagan, _HellSpark_
Matthew T. Russotto
The Trinker <k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
}
}
}But, in the interest of teaching *English*, we fail to teach
}children other languages. I think this is as great a failing
}as the inadequate teaching of English to any child.
Since the schools are inadequate at even teaching English, shouldn't
they fix that up first before considering trying to throw foreign
languages into the mix?
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@pond.com
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in pursuit
of justice is no virtue."
The Trinker
"Matthew T. Russotto" wrote:
>
> In article <37F82F6F...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>,
> The Trinker <k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
> }
> }
> }But, in the interest of teaching *English*, we fail to teach
> }children other languages. I think this is as great a failing
> }as the inadequate teaching of English to any child.
>
> Since the schools are inadequate at even teaching English, shouldn't
> they fix that up first before considering trying to throw foreign
> languages into the mix?
Actually, I think learning a foreign language teaches valuable
things about English (or any native language). It's harder to
understand the value of learning grammar when it's one's native
language, but in a foreign language, it's vital for understanding.
John Palmer
wrote:
>John Palmer wrote:
>
>The school board of Oakland County (CA) was trying to pass a bit of
>legislation allowing them to teach students in "Black English" (about 2
>years ago, iirc) under bilingual education statutes.
Not quite. It was a resolution calling for "Black
English/Ebonics/whatever" to be considered (more or less) an equal
language to any other language. The tricky bit in the original
resolution was that it gave equal consideration to Ebonics as to, say,
Spanish.
>In a former life, I was a linguist, although now I'm just lingual. But
>the problems I perceived within this action are manifold. As are the
>considerations. Bear with me.
>
>First, the general perception that Black English is just "bad English"
>when it is in fact a recognized dialect by most respected linguists and
>those who teach linguistics. Black English has grammatical rules and
>linguistic origins just like any other dialect, but our culture teaches
>us that it is low class and not upwardly mobile to celebrate and adhere
>to such a dialect.
Which is my main point. It's considered a mark of a lack of
education, when it's simply following another pattern.
>Third, and lastly, because I've decided to be relatively brief in spite
>of having many things to say on this issue...the measure failed, and I
>am not sure it failed rightly, that is, for the reasons it should have,
>but here is my take on why we don't/should not teach students with Black
>English (or any other dialect/language).
There's the rub. It never called specifically for teaching
students with another 'language'; it only asserted the right for the
'language' to be treated as another language.
>We can't teach Black English and not teach Georgia South, or midwestern,
>or Vermont New England, or Southwestern TexMex. Black English is a
>dialect of English. It is not a separate language. I do not disagree
>that non-English speaking students should be helped to learn English.
>But we have every language in the world in this nation. We can't teach
>them all in the regular classroom. We have to use Standard English.
>We've accomodated Spanish. But I'm not even sure we should have done
>that.
But that's exactly the point: if we're going to try to help
Spanish speaking students to learn English, and specifically not fault
them or put them down for answering a question in Spanish (but still
requiring them to learn the English equivalent to their answer, and
use it 'next time'), we should do the same for any other language.
>Because...we are ultimately an English speaking nation and we are a
>"free market" economy and Darwinian to the extreme in that if you can't
>make it in the general atmosphere you might as well settle for cleaning
>toilets.
Which is *EXACTLY* why we have to do our darnedest to give
everyone the opportunity to learn standard English, and part of that
means recognizing what dialects there are, and accepting those dialect
differences as being 'normal'. . . all the while teaching the
standard.
--
Everything I needed to know in life I learned in Kindergarten. Like:
Once you pull the pin on Mr. Hand Grenade, he is no longer your friend.
John Palmer
<k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
>
>They were actually going to do some very good teaching of standard
>English to these children. I think the initial idea was very good.
>The politicos in Oakland got a little too enthusiastic, though, and
>acted as though Black English were the *natural* language of all
>black children. Pretty stupid, in my opinion.
Erm. I'm not sure what you mean by that; if you're referring to
their use of the word "genetic", it meant something different. . .
that the language was changing in generational steps, or somesuch.
The language of today depended on the language of yesterday, etc..
(Darn it, if Morpheme Addict was here, I bet she'd know for sure; this
is her field.)
John Palmer
<k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
>
>
>"Matthew T. Russotto" wrote:
>>
>> Since the schools are inadequate at even teaching English, shouldn't
>> they fix that up first before considering trying to throw foreign
>> languages into the mix?
>
>Actually, I think learning a foreign language teaches valuable
>things about English (or any native language). It's harder to
>understand the value of learning grammar when it's one's native
>language, but in a foreign language, it's vital for understanding.
I do know that there were a lot of things about English that I
didn't understand until I had to learn the concepts in Spanish. It
was the first time I had to come up against the concept in a way that
I couldn't simply 'know' to be right.
The Trinker
John Palmer wrote:
>
> On Sun, 03 Oct 1999 21:39:11 -0700, The Trinker
> <k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
> >
> >They were actually going to do some very good teaching of standard
> >English to these children. I think the initial idea was very good.
> >The politicos in Oakland got a little too enthusiastic, though, and
> >acted as though Black English were the *natural* language of all
> >black children. Pretty stupid, in my opinion.
>
> Erm. I'm not sure what you mean by that; if you're referring to
> their use of the word "genetic", it meant something different. . .
> that the language was changing in generational steps, or somesuch.
> The language of today depended on the language of yesterday, etc..
> (Darn it, if Morpheme Addict was here, I bet she'd know for sure; this
> is her field.)
It wasn't the "genetic" comment. As I recall, it was from the press
conferences that surrounded the event. Alas, my memory of that whole
debacle is not as clear as it could be (especially given my nasty
all day headache.)
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
The Trinker wrote in message
<37F81807...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
|John Palmer wrote:
|
|> The idea is (or should be) to have the teacher understand that
|> "she be at work" is as natural to many black people as "y'all have
|> unusual speech patterns in the northern states" is to a person from
|> the South.
|>
|> The difference is the difference between "A lot of people use
|> that, but in standard English, "you" is both the singular and the
|> plural" and "she be at work? She BE at work? EVERYONE knows it's
|> supposed to be "she *IS* at work". Learn your conjugations!"
|
|You're also forgetting that there's actually a rigorous and
|consistent grammar to "Ebonics"/black English vernacular/
|black English/etc.
There's a rigorous and consistent grammar to French, but we don't teach
our core curriculum in it. People who speak French as their first
language are expected to learn English if they want to attend our
schools and expected to learn to speak and write it well if they want
good grades in speaking and writing and subjects that require those
abilities.
"A language is a dialect with an army." Ebonics doesn't have an army.
At most, it has a mob.
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CCP, CFI)
http://www.babcom.com/polymath/
http://www.babcom.com/gla-mensa/
Query pgpkeys.mit.edu for PGP public key.
The Trinker
"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
>
> The Trinker wrote in message
> <37F81807...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
> |John Palmer wrote:
> |
> |> The idea is (or should be) to have the teacher understand that
> |> "she be at work" is as natural to many black people as "y'all have
> |> unusual speech patterns in the northern states" is to a person from
> |> the South.
> |>
> |> The difference is the difference between "A lot of people use
> |> that, but in standard English, "you" is both the singular and the
> |> plural" and "she be at work? She BE at work? EVERYONE knows it's
> |> supposed to be "she *IS* at work". Learn your conjugations!"
> |
> |You're also forgetting that there's actually a rigorous and
> |consistent grammar to "Ebonics"/black English vernacular/
> |black English/etc.
>
> There's a rigorous and consistent grammar to French, but we don't teach
> our core curriculum in it. People who speak French as their first
> language are expected to learn English if they want to attend our
> schools and expected to learn to speak and write it well if they want
> good grades in speaking and writing and subjects that require those
> abilities.
Depends on the school, Polymath.
And they weren't going to teach everything using Black English,
they were going to treat it as an ESL learning situation.
*Teaching* these kids standard English would have been a good thing.
> "A language is a dialect with an army." Ebonics doesn't have an army.
> At most, it has a mob.
Gee...Lapp is a language, but it the Saami don't have their own
army. Dineh is a language, the Navajo don't have an army. Tahitian
is a language, but they're a French territory, and their army is
French. The distinction between language and dialect gives most
linguists I know hives.
Rift Maven
>
> Oh, it was "Bojangles" But they're out of business now.
> which, of course, made me instantly suspcious & I casually asked
> someone I thought wouldn't think fast - and hit the "jackpot".
There are several Bojangles restaurants (using the term loosely) alive
and well and producing the heck out of greasy chicken here in Columbia
-- had a chicken biscuit from there just a few weeks ago, in fact.
There's one just across the street from the place I work that offers us
a 10% discount, not that I ever take advantage of it. Don't care for
the food overall, but the biscuits are great!
Sally
--
Cats are not clean, they're covered in cat spit!!
Jeanne A. E. DeVoto
<jpal...@ix.netcom.com> spake unto Usenet and said:
> Erm. I'm not sure what you mean by that; if you're referring to
>their use of the word "genetic", it meant something different. . .
>that the language was changing in generational steps, or somesuch.
Not exactly. The wording they used was "African Language Systems are
genetically based and not a dialect of English", and it was apparent to
me at the time that they meant that as in "genetically encoded in
African-descended people" in some sense. My guess is that the school
board had read a scholarly article, or interviewed an expert, or
something that had theorized a genetic relationship between African
languages and Ebonics; they weren't aware that the term is used in
linguistics to mean that two languages are related by descent; and so
the idea got garbled. They took the phrase out when they amended the
resolution.
(If anyone's interested, the original Oakland school board resolution
is preserved in amber at
<http://www.jaedworks.com/shoebox/oakland-ebonics.html>.)
--
Morning people may be respected, but night people are feared.
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|On Mon, 4 Oct 1999 15:42:45 -0700, "The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)"
|>|You're also forgetting that there's actually a rigorous and
|>|consistent grammar to "Ebonics"/black English vernacular/
|>|black English/etc.
|>There's a rigorous and consistent grammar to French, but we don't
teach
|>our core curriculum in it. People who speak French as their first
|>language are expected to learn English if they want to attend our
|>schools and expected to learn to speak and write it well if they want
|>good grades in speaking and writing and subjects that require those
|>abilities.
|
| And there are programs that grant them assistance, in some
|cases, for learning English if they are unable to do so quickly
|enough. Why should we specifically help a native French speaker and
|refuse that same type of help to someone who speaks another language,
|even if we happen to think that language is "so close to English it
|doesn't matter"? ...
I have no objection to tutoring people in English. In fact, I applaud
it (isn't that one of the things our school system is supposed to do?).
However, tutoring purported speakers of "Ebonics" isn't ESL, it's
remedial English and should be taught as such.
The Trinker
"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
>
What is the difference between remedial English and ESL?
I can understand poor English. I don't understand Black English.
I repeat again, Polymath, if you've done any linguistics study
recently, you'd know that Black English differs significantly
from any versions of Standard English. It isn't poor grammar
and pronunciation, it's actually *different* and *consistent*.
John Palmer
<poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>The Trinker wrote in message
>|You're also forgetting that there's actually a rigorous and
>|consistent grammar to "Ebonics"/black English vernacular/
>|black English/etc.
>
>
>There's a rigorous and consistent grammar to French, but we don't teach
>our core curriculum in it. People who speak French as their first
>language are expected to learn English if they want to attend our
>schools and expected to learn to speak and write it well if they want
>good grades in speaking and writing and subjects that require those
>abilities.
And there are programs that grant them assistance, in some
cases, for learning English if they are unable to do so quickly
enough. Why should we specifically help a native French speaker and
refuse that same type of help to someone who speaks another language,
even if we happen to think that language is "so close to English it
doesn't matter"?
(Yes, you could argue "we shouldn't help the French speaker".
But if you're going to help the French speaker with tutors in English,
why should you not tutor anyone who has problems with English?)
--
pel...@centre.edu
fla...@hers.com wrote:
>
>
> John Palmer wrote:
<snippety>
>
> > For gay people semi-exclusively, "are slang terms describing your
> > sexual preference accepted as more or less universal insults?"
>
> Actually, references to genitalia are insults, and thus applicable for
> both men & women to be victimized by their utterance.
True. But insults like "pansy," "butt-****er," and others are
mainstream. I've heard almost every unpleasant term for gay folk used
as cuss-words, *even when it was clearly understood that they didn't
apply.* To be compared to a gay person is understood, in such contexts,
to be an insult. Admittedly, that's rather hard to fit into the
individually-oriented questionaire, but it is an indicator of
discrimination, and should be taken into account.
I wouldn't limit it to gay folk, either. Admittedly, I've never
heard "nigger" used as a generic insult, but I suppose it could be. And
"Jew him down" meaning to act as a tough and possibly unfair negotiator,
is still in use. "Bitch," interestingly, has recently come into usage
for both males and females; whether this is a good or bad sign for
women, I'm not sure.
The number of insulting terms and phrases that are frequently used
to describe one's sub-group may be an indicator of discrimination. F'r
example, think of how many insulting terms there are for the "unmarked
catagory," white, middle-class males. (I can think of only two, but my
brain is fried at the moment.) Contrast this with the rich vocabulary
that can be used to not-compliment the gay male. Or the pagan.
I'm not sure if this correlates across the board; I am familiar with
only one truly insulting term for black folks. What say you, Patrons:
am I just sheltered, or finding false connections?
Izunya
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Susan Cohen
pel...@centre.edu wrote:
> In article <37F83E66...@his.com>,
> fla...@hers.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > John Palmer wrote:
> <snippety>
>
> >
> > > For gay people semi-exclusively, "are slang terms describing your
> > > sexual preference accepted as more or less universal insults?"
> >
> > Actually, references to genitalia are insults, and thus applicable for
> > both men & women to be victimized by their utterance.
>
> True. But insults like "pansy," "butt-****er," and others are
> mainstream. I've heard almost every unpleasant term for gay folk used
> as cuss-words, *even when it was clearly understood that they didn't
> apply.* To be compared to a gay person is understood, in such contexts,
> to be an insult.
Oh, true - I didn't mean to minimize that truth.
> Admittedly, that's rather hard to fit into the
> individually-oriented questionaire, but it is an indicator of
> discrimination, and should be taken into account.
> I wouldn't limit it to gay folk, either. Admittedly, I've never
> heard "nigger" used as a generic insult, but I suppose it could be.
Someone actually called my husband one. A black guy tried to pick
me up (I suspect he was either drunk or crazy, because it was on the
street!) & when I gently declined, saying i was married, he said, "Oh,
I ain' afraid of that n----!" I was so stunned I nearly *laughed*!
That's the *only* time that word has ever made me *smile*
> And
> "Jew him down" meaning to act as a tough and possibly unfair negotiator,
> is still in use.
Actually, it means to nag someone into a lower price.
> "Bitch," interestingly, has recently come into usage
> for both males and females; whether this is a good or bad sign for
> women, I'm not sure.
I think the jury's still out. I hope it's positive.
> The number of insulting terms and phrases that are frequently used
> to describe one's sub-group may be an indicator of discrimination. F'r
> example, think of how many insulting terms there are for the "unmarked
> catagory," white, middle-class males. (I can think of only two, but my
> brain is fried at the moment.)
I can;t think of any. "Cracker" I always thought was for generic white
bigots.
> Contrast this with the rich vocabulary
> that can be used to not-compliment the gay male.
All falls under fear, you know. :-)
> Or the pagan.
Now the only words I can think of to desribe pagans would be the
same used to anyone not following the religion of the bigot in question.
> I'm not sure if this correlates across the board; I am familiar with
> only one truly insulting term for black folks. What say you, Patrons:
> am I just sheltered, or finding false connections?
I've heard of *plenty* that I think are reserved only for Black people.
Please don't make me list them.
Susan
Susan Cohen
"Lee S. Billings" wrote:
> In article <37F83DB4...@his.com>, fla...@his.com says...
> >
> >
> >
> >al...@nospam.takea.guess.cornell.edu wrote:
> >
> >> In article <37F4F011...@his.com>, fla...@hers.com wrote:
> >>
> >> >> 12) Have you ever been demoted because you were [fitb]?
> >> >
> >> >No, but I have been paid less than a man for doing the exact same
> work.
> >>
> >> What was the job? If it was company policy please post their name. I
> don't
> >> like companies with that policy.
> >
> >Oh, it was "Bojangles" But they're out of business now.
>
> Um... hate to tell you, but unless that's happened in the past 2 years
> they're still around. Q'vaD could tell us for sure...
Rats! I guess they're out of business up North, then.
Susan
Don Paul
>> |> The difference is the difference between "A lot of people use
>> |> that, but in standard English, "you" is both the singular and the
>> |> plural" and "she be at work? She BE at work? EVERYONE knows it's
>> |> supposed to be "she *IS* at work". Learn your conjugations!"
It's not that simple.
Our maid (yes, we have a maid...) when answering the LSD on a question as to
my whereabouts, will say "Mr Don, SHE is at work".
It would appear that in original black tongues, the he/she thing is quite
interchangable with the masculine/femine emphasis placed at the end of the
noun.
umfaan= boy
umfana = girl
I must ask Madame Cynth about that..(or my nine year old, who speaks Xhosa
like a... ummm ...native.)
Don Paul is d...@1-2-1.co.za
Oscar Tango 121
Relationship Marketing
Cape Town
South Africa
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|What is the difference between remedial English and ESL?
ESL assumes no knowledge of English. Remedial English assumes incorrect
knowledge of English.
|I can understand poor English. I don't understand Black English.
I don't recall having any problem with it.
|I repeat again, Polymath, if you've done any linguistics study
|recently, you'd know that Black English differs significantly
|from any versions of Standard English. It isn't poor grammar
|and pronunciation, it's actually *different* and *consistent*.
I know that. Being those things and being poor English grammar and
pronunciation are not mutually exclusive.
John Palmer
<poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>The Trinker wrote in message
><37F9A1CA...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
>|I repeat again, Polymath, if you've done any linguistics study
>|recently, you'd know that Black English differs significantly
>|from any versions of Standard English. It isn't poor grammar
>|and pronunciation, it's actually *different* and *consistent*.
>
>
>I know that. Being those things and being poor English grammar and
>pronunciation are not mutually exclusive.
Might I point out that this is exactly the question I felt should
be added, and the reasoning behind it. Rather than being accepted as
"what these people have heard and grown up with, and what they have
used as naturally as most people use standard English", it's dismissed
as "substandard English" rather than "a different dialect".
Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing from
US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
inferior to the mainstream".
The statement is made "We must fix the deficiency", rather than
"we must teach the differences".
Somehow, these children, growing up with a particular dialect
spoken around them, should have realized that the only words they're
hearing are spoken incorrectly and not in accordance with the *REAL*
language, standard US English.
Sigh.
--
Liana Olear
: "The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
: >
: > I have no objection to tutoring people in English. In fact, I applaud
: > it (isn't that one of the things our school system is supposed to do?).
: > However, tutoring purported speakers of "Ebonics" isn't ESL, it's
: > remedial English and should be taught as such.
: What is the difference between remedial English and ESL?
I think if you put an Ebonics speaker and an average ESL student into the
same class, one of them won't be benefitting from it. The ESL student
would need to spend a lot of time on vocabulary, which I don't think an
Ebonics speaker would need as much of. While grammar may be useful to
both,I think the mix would result in too much vocab to keep an Ebonics
student from being bored to death, or not enough to be of use to a foreign
student.
Liana
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
How and why they acquired their bad linguistic habits is irrelevant
except to social reformers, who should be working to correct those
conditions rather than sanctioning them as an acceptable dialect. (And
don't talk to me about "Black Culture" in this context. "Ebonics" as
has much to do with culture as the Salton Sea has to do with ecology.)
The plain fact is, if they want a job above the level of flipping
burgers, they're going to have to learn to speak standard US English.
(Heck, if they want to interact with customers at a burger joint they're
going to have to learn to speak US English.) To the extent that
speaking "Ebonics" will retard their careers and lives (and, for most,
it will), it is an affliction to be corrected and, yes, inferior to the
mainstream. The fact that it is internally consistent is irrelevant.
The delusions of psychotics are often internally consistent, but we
don't advocate accommodating the world to them.
mae...@bordeaux.enteract.com
> We are
> discussing how best to accomodate "them" to the world of jobs above the
> level of burger flipping.
Of course, as soon as I sent this it occurred to me that *my* part of "we"
had been purely internal until this moment. *g*.
maenad - sheesh again.
--
__Anna________fun is good!_________BORDEAUX = spamblock__
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they are not. -Yogi Berra
---------------------------------------------------------
mae...@bordeaux.enteract.com
John Palmer:
> | Somehow, these children, growing up with a particular dialect
> |spoken around them, should have realized that the only words they're
> |hearing are spoken incorrectly and not in accordance with the *REAL*
> |language, standard US English.
"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" :
> How and why they acquired their bad linguistic habits is irrelevant
> except to social reformers, who should be working to correct those
> conditions rather than sanctioning them as an acceptable dialect. (And
> don't talk to me about "Black Culture" in this context. "Ebonics" as
> has much to do with culture as the Salton Sea has to do with ecology.)
> The plain fact is, if they want a job above the level of flipping
> burgers, they're going to have to learn to speak standard US English.
> (Heck, if they want to interact with customers at a burger joint they're
> going to have to learn to speak US English.) To the extent that
> speaking "Ebonics" will retard their careers and lives (and, for most,
> it will), it is an affliction to be corrected and, yes, inferior to the
> mainstream. The fact that it is internally consistent is irrelevant.
> The delusions of psychotics are often internally consistent, but we
> don't advocate accommodating the world to them.
Hello? The fact that it is internally consistent is COMPLETELY relevant,
because the most effective method of teaching them SAE will take that into
account and use it. (See Liana's commentary.)
Nobody here is advocating *accomodating* the world to "them". We are
discussing how best to accomodate "them" to the world of jobs above the
level of burger flipping.
maenad - not to interrupt a good rant or anything. Sheesh.
The Trinker
Having taught ESL conversation courses and worked closely with
the development of ESL course development, I think that the needs
of a Black English speaker are roughly equivalent to advanced
ESL classes, which would consist of accent reduction, and grammar
tutorials. Teaching vocabulary is only the beginning of ESL.
pel...@centre.edu
fla...@hers.com wrote:
>
>
> pel...@centre.edu wrote:
>
> > In article <37F83E66...@his.com>,
> > fla...@hers.com wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > John Palmer wrote:
> > <snippety>
> >
> > >
> > > > For gay people semi-exclusively, "are slang terms describing
your
> > > > sexual preference accepted as more or less universal insults?"
> > >
> > > Actually, references to genitalia are insults, and thus applicable
for
> > > both men & women to be victimized by their utterance.
> >
> > True. But insults like "pansy," "butt-****er," and others are
> > mainstream. I've heard almost every unpleasant term for gay folk
used
> > as cuss-words, *even when it was clearly understood that they didn't
> > apply.* To be compared to a gay person is understood, in such
contexts,
> > to be an insult.
>
> Oh, true - I didn't mean to minimize that truth.
>
for Clarification that we spend (not waste, mind you) so much of our
time on in these parts. :)
Way I learned it, "cracker" refers to lower-class whites, like
"white trash" or "redneck." Bigotry is a concept deeply entwined with
the other two, though.
I was thinking of "honky," and, probably incorrectly, "goy." If I
am remembering correctly, "goyim," is a semi-insulting term for generic
non-Jews, but it was mostly used in Europe, where most folks are (duh)
white.
>
> > Contrast this with the rich vocabulary
> > that can be used to not-compliment the gay male.
>
> All falls under fear, you know. :-)
>
> > Or the pagan.
>
> Now the only words I can think of to desribe pagans would be the
> same used to anyone not following the religion of the bigot in
question.
Hmmm . . . yes and no. "Heathen," yeah, that just means, "You
don't believe what I do and I am therefore resolved not to like you. I
fart in your general direction." But I've heard pagans of all stripes
refered to as Satanists, which is both inaccurate and insulting to most
of them. I don't think I've heard "Satanists" applied to, fer example,
the bits of Christianity that the more foaming-at-mouth preachers don't
like. There are a number of ways that one can elaborate on the Satan
motif to create new and interesting insults. Then there are also the
more generic, less harmful labels along the lines of "flake," and
"fruitcake," that also get pinned on pagans to an inordinate degree.
'Course, you can call anyone a fruitcake if you want (myself, I can
practically taste the waves of nutfulness radiating from our good friend
the Teletubby Man) but still . . .
>
> > I'm not sure if this correlates across the board; I am familiar
with
> > only one truly insulting term for black folks. What say you,
Patrons:
> > am I just sheltered, or finding false connections?
>
> I've heard of *plenty* that I think are reserved only for Black
people.
> Please don't make me list them.
>
Relax; I wouldn't do that to anyone, even in the interests of
sociological research.
LePheaux
Re-sent>
>> "Jew him down" meaning to act as a tough and possibly unfair negotiator,
>> is still in use.
>
>Actually, it means to nag someone into a lower price.
<<<>>>>
To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is undecided.
<<<>>>
>I can;t think of any. "Cracker" I always thought was for generic white
>bigots.
><<<>>>
Doesn't have anything to do with Bigotry.
It's a common term from the South, in reference to any white person.
Also used to describe a native of several southern states.
The term Cracker, was actually invented by whites in Georgia.
My Wifeys Mother originated from Georgia. and calls herself a Georgia
Cracker.
The southern Blacks, prolly not understanding the usage of the word,
use the word in a derogatory way to signify a White person.
LePheaux
>I can understand poor English. I don't understand Black English.
>I repeat again, Polymath, if you've done any linguistics study
>recently, you'd know that Black English differs significantly
>from any versions of Standard English. It isn't poor grammar
>and pronunciation, it's actually *different* and *consistent*.
>
<<<>>>
The fact remains the same though.
Ebonics & Black English, isn't Just poor Grammar. It's a f***** up version
of English.
It makes the speaker sound Ignorant, Uneducated, and stereotypical,
of The suppressed.
IMO, if you want to help stamp out stereo-typing, of the poor Black
Suppressed.
I can't get the same job as the Next person.
Then not supporting improper English, could very well be the first step.
And why in Ghauds name would the School boards want to let a student
continue learning a *consistent*-*Different* Language, that will do nothing
but
degrade themselves in the real world ????
John Palmer
<poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>John Palmer wrote in message <37f9df7c....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>|
>| Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing from
>|US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
>|inferior to the mainstream".
(snip)
>| Somehow, these children, growing up with a particular dialect
>|spoken around them, should have realized that the only words they're
>|hearing are spoken incorrectly and not in accordance with the *REAL*
>|language, standard US English.
>
>
>How and why they acquired their bad linguistic habits
How and why they acquired their "bad linguistic habits" is
*EXACTLY* the same way that Spanish-, French-, etc., speaking people
learned their "bad linguistic habits", which include massive word
substitutions and different linguistic structures.
If you're claiming that it's a "bad linguistic habit" to know
only Spanish when arriving in the US from a Spanish speaking country,
you have a really stupid definition of "bad linguistic habits".
>is irrelevant
>except to social reformers, who should be working to correct those
>conditions rather than sanctioning them as an acceptable dialect. (And
>don't talk to me about "Black Culture" in this context. "Ebonics" as
>has much to do with culture as the Salton Sea has to do with ecology.)
Absolutely. Whenever something grows among a group of people,
it's not part of culture. Ooops. Sorry, that's the very definition
of culture.
>The plain fact is, if they want a job above the level of flipping
>burgers, they're going to have to learn to speak standard US English.
Just as a native Spanish speaker has to learn standard US English
for the same reasons.
>(Heck, if they want to interact with customers at a burger joint they're
>going to have to learn to speak US English.) To the extent that
>speaking "Ebonics" will retard their careers and lives (and, for most,
>it will),
Really? When speaking to friends and family, it will retard
their careers and lives? Gee, I know of a lot of bilingual people who
use one language with the general public, and use another with their
friends and families; are all of their lives and careers being held
back by this?
> it is an affliction to be corrected and, yes, inferior to the
>mainstream.
And for anyone who wondered why I brought up the issue, here's
a perfect example. A person speaking this way has an affliction -
even if they know how to speak perfect standard US English, and aren't
even speaking to Polymath.
>The fact that it is internally consistent is irrelevant.
>The delusions of psychotics are often internally consistent, but we
>don't advocate accommodating the world to them.
As are the beliefs of many religious groups, but we don't tell
them that their religious beliefs are wrong, and must be changed to
fit the mainstream.
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|Having taught ESL conversation courses and worked closely with
|the development of ESL course development, I think that the needs
|of a Black English speaker are roughly equivalent to advanced
|ESL classes, which would consist of accent reduction, and grammar
|tutorials. Teaching vocabulary is only the beginning of ESL.
And the difference between advanced ESL and remedial Engilsh is?
Lee S. Billings
poly...@pacbell.net says...
>
>The Trinker wrote in message
><37FA44D2...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
>
>|Having taught ESL conversation courses and worked closely with
>|the development of ESL course development, I think that the needs
>|of a Black English speaker are roughly equivalent to advanced
>|ESL classes, which would consist of accent reduction, and grammar
>|tutorials. Teaching vocabulary is only the beginning of ESL.
>
>
>And the difference between advanced ESL and remedial Engilsh is?
The attitude toward the student.
Celine
--
"Art comes from the heart, but the heart is instructed by the culture."
-- Janet Kagan, _HellSpark_
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|On Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:02:54 -0700, "The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)"
<poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
|>John Palmer wrote in message
<37f9df7c....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
|>| Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing
from
|>|US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
|>|inferior to the mainstream".
|(snip)
|>| Somehow, these children, growing up with a particular dialect
|>|spoken around them, should have realized that the only words they're
|>|hearing are spoken incorrectly and not in accordance with the *REAL*
|>|language, standard US English.
|>
|>
|>How and why they acquired their bad linguistic habits
|
| How and why they acquired their "bad linguistic habits" is
|*EXACTLY* the same way that Spanish-, French-, etc., speaking people
|learned their "bad linguistic habits", which include massive word
|substitutions and different linguistic structures.
|
| If you're claiming that it's a "bad linguistic habit" to know
|only Spanish when arriving in the US from a Spanish speaking country,
|you have a really stupid definition of "bad linguistic habits".
I am claiming it is a Bad Thing, as a matter of policy, to give
"Ebonics" the same credibility as Spanish or French, no matter how
acquired. The analogy is deeply flawed and the situations are not at
all parallel.
|>is irrelevant
|>except to social reformers, who should be working to correct those
|>conditions rather than sanctioning them as an acceptable dialect.
(And
|>don't talk to me about "Black Culture" in this context. "Ebonics" as
|>has much to do with culture as the Salton Sea has to do with ecology.)
|
| Absolutely. Whenever something grows among a group of people,
|it's not part of culture. Ooops. Sorry, that's the very definition
|of culture.
And the Salton Sea[1] has an ecology -- a totally artificial one that
should never have existed in the first place.
|>The plain fact is, if they want a job above the level of flipping
|>burgers, they're going to have to learn to speak standard US English.
|
| Just as a native Spanish speaker has to learn standard US English
|for the same reasons.
|
|>(Heck, if they want to interact with customers at a burger joint
they're
|>going to have to learn to speak US English.) To the extent that
|>speaking "Ebonics" will retard their careers and lives (and, for most,
|>it will),
|
| Really? When speaking to friends and family, it will retard
|their careers and lives? ...
Who said anything about speaking to friends and family (besides you)?
When speaking to potential employers it bloody well will. If they start
their own business, when speaking to customers (or commercial bank
managers) it bloody well will. Do you deny that?
|... Gee, I know of a lot of bilingual people who
|use one language with the general public, and use another with their
|friends and families; are all of their lives and careers being held
|back by this?
Again, you're drawing a parallel between "Ebonics" -- which is, at best,
a dialect of American English, no matter how self-consistent it is --
and people who have arrived in the USA from other countries. I don't
believe such an analogy is valid.
|> it is an affliction to be corrected and, yes, inferior to the
|>mainstream.
|
| And for anyone who wondered why I brought up the issue, here's
|a perfect example. A person speaking this way has an affliction -
|even if they know how to speak perfect standard US English, and aren't
|even speaking to Polymath.
If they know how to speak perfect standard US English, I don't care what
else they know how to speak. "Ebonics" is an affliction as long as it's
the only thing they speak _and that's treated as an acceptable
condition_.
As soon as you grant "Ebonics" the cachet of a foreign language, you're
going to have loons crawling out of the woodwork demanding accomodations
be made for it and claiming unfair discrimination if you don't make
those accomodations. Then you're going to have kids (and their parents,
heaven help us) demanding to know why they're flunking English when they
speak a perfectly valid language.
Look at the lunacy some of the deaf extremists are perpetuating with
respect to chochlear implants. Imagine people claiming you are
"destroying their culture" by teaching standard English to "Ebonics"
speakers. That is every bit as absurd as worrying about the ecology of
the Salton Sea -- and every bit as certain to happen.
|>The fact that it is internally consistent is irrelevant.
|>The delusions of psychotics are often internally consistent, but we
|>don't advocate accommodating the world to them.
|
| As are the beliefs of many religious groups, but we don't tell
|them that their religious beliefs are wrong, and must be changed to
|fit the mainstream.
In some cases we do. In most cases, religious beliefs are a private
matter unless the believer chooses to make them public.
[1] For those unaware: The Salton Sea is a largish salt lake in
Southern California. It was created _by accident_ when an aquaduct
failed and flooded some of the neighboring desert. Now it's drying up
(well ... duh! It's a desert!) and the usual eco-freaks are wringing
their hands over its vanishing ecology -- an ecology that was totally
artificial and would never have existed in the first place but for man's
incompetent intervention.
Allan Friedman
>
> Re-sent>
>
> >> "Jew him down" meaning to act as a tough and possibly unfair negotiator,
> >> is still in use.
> >
> >Actually, it means to nag someone into a lower price.
>
> <<<>>>>
> To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
> Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is undecided.
> <<<>>>
Susan's right. Now, LePheaux, for what you know of me in this Place, I'm pretty
reasonable. Could you please confirm that you used the words "just another
term..." innocently, to mean an alternative, rather than an ignorant (I don't
mean that harshly) acceptance of the phrase? To Jew someone, IMO, is definitely
racial and demeaning, not a standard alternative to the word "barter".
-Keez (I'm leaving a BOYC at the Bar on the assumption that it *was* innocent)
(Oh...sorry if the above is a bit rambly, I'm quite tired)
Blue
The Polymath wrote:
[][1] For those unaware: The Salton Sea is a largish salt lake in
[]Southern California. It was created _by accident_ when an aquaduct
[]failed and flooded some of the neighboring desert. Now it's drying up
[](well ... duh! It's a desert!) and the usual eco-freaks are wringing
[]their hands over its vanishing ecology -- an ecology that was totally
[]artificial and would never have existed in the first place but for man's
[]incompetent intervention.
Well... besides the point but a few millenia ago it was part of
what is now the Pacific Ocean. It dried up, then along came humans.
DJ.
--
djim50 at bellsouth dot net Disclaimer: Standard
I also don't need extra Tea and spam in my reply to...:-)
Updated October 5, 1999:http://www.crosswinds.net/~djim51/
Neil Davidoff
> I was thinking of "honky," and, probably incorrectly, "goy." If I
>am remembering correctly, "goyim," is a semi-insulting term for generic
>non-Jews, but it was mostly used in Europe, where most folks are (duh)
>white.
Goy (plural, goyim) literally means "nation" or "people". It is used
by (Hebrew-speaking) Jews to refer to non-Jews. This word is
sometimes, but not always, used in an insulting manner. It does
not refer to any specific race.
Luria
(Remove <ical> to E-Mail)
____________________
That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch
of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.
- Calvin
Bruce E. Golightly
in an English speaking country. This includes things like ebonics.
I understand the need for classes to help non-English speakers become
proficient enough to further their education, but WHY THE HELL are native
born US children unable to speak, read or write their native tongue?
Anam, remembering several truly astonishing examples from his teaching days
--On Tuesday, October 05, 1999, 1:16 PM -0700 "The Polymath (Jerry
Hollombe)" <poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> The Trinker wrote in message
> <37FA44D2...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
>
> |Having taught ESL conversation courses and worked closely with
> |the development of ESL course development, I think that the needs
> |of a Black English speaker are roughly equivalent to advanced
> |ESL classes, which would consist of accent reduction, and grammar
> |tutorials. Teaching vocabulary is only the beginning of ESL.
>
>
> And the difference between advanced ESL and remedial Engilsh is?
>
The Trinker
"Bruce E. Golightly" wrote:
>
> The thing that baffles me is why we _need_ remedial English for people born
> in an English speaking country. This includes things like ebonics.
>
> I understand the need for classes to help non-English speakers become
> proficient enough to further their education, but WHY THE HELL are native
> born US children unable to speak, read or write their native tongue?
>
> Anam, remembering several truly astonishing examples from his teaching days
We don't teach prescriptive grammar at the elementary school level
anymore, stressing "creativity" and "whole word reading" instead.
The Trinker
Should we make it *more* pejorative than surfer speak, or Southernisms,
or Yankeeisms?
> |... Gee, I know of a lot of bilingual people who
> |use one language with the general public, and use another with their
> |friends and families; are all of their lives and careers being held
> |back by this?
>
> Again, you're drawing a parallel between "Ebonics" -- which is, at best,
> a dialect of American English, no matter how self-consistent it is --
> and people who have arrived in the USA from other countries. I don't
> believe such an analogy is valid.
Honestly, I think that if we require speakers of Black English to
conform strictly to standard English, we should require it of
speakers of other dialects of English, too.
Much like Irish English is an artifact of English being spoken
originally by Gaelic speakers, Black English is an artifact of
English being spoken by speakers of African languages.
> |> it is an affliction to be corrected and, yes, inferior to the
> |>mainstream.
> |
> | And for anyone who wondered why I brought up the issue, here's
> |a perfect example. A person speaking this way has an affliction -
> |even if they know how to speak perfect standard US English, and aren't
> |even speaking to Polymath.
>
> If they know how to speak perfect standard US English, I don't care what
> else they know how to speak. "Ebonics" is an affliction as long as it's
> the only thing they speak _and that's treated as an acceptable
> condition_.
*Everyone* in the U.S., ideally should speak a mutually intelligible
language. English by its majority is the logical choice.
The question is, should children who speak Black English be taught
under the philosophy, "You speak a variant of English which is not
standard, and the majority of this country understands Standard
English, therefore for maximum chance of success, you should know
how to speak Standard English", or should they be taught "your version
of English is *BAD*"
> As soon as you grant "Ebonics" the cachet of a foreign language, you're
> going to have loons crawling out of the woodwork demanding accomodations
> be made for it and claiming unfair discrimination if you don't make
> those accomodations. Then you're going to have kids (and their parents,
> heaven help us) demanding to know why they're flunking English when they
> speak a perfectly valid language.
>
> Look at the lunacy some of the deaf extremists are perpetuating with
> respect to chochlear implants. Imagine people claiming you are
> "destroying their culture" by teaching standard English to "Ebonics"
> speakers. That is every bit as absurd as worrying about the ecology of
> the Salton Sea -- and every bit as certain to happen.
Cochlear implants, unfortunately, are another issue altogether.
They do *not* at this time adequately bring most deaf people to
the level of hearing people.
The Trinker
LePheaux wrote:
>
> re-sent>
>
> >I can understand poor English. I don't understand Black English.
> >I repeat again, Polymath, if you've done any linguistics study
> >recently, you'd know that Black English differs significantly
> >from any versions of Standard English. It isn't poor grammar
> >and pronunciation, it's actually *different* and *consistent*.
> >
> <<<>>>
> The fact remains the same though.
> Ebonics & Black English, isn't Just poor Grammar. It's a f***** up version
> of English.
It is a *variant* of English, which has the same roots as any other
intermediate step between languages.
> It makes the speaker sound Ignorant, Uneducated, and stereotypical,
> of The suppressed.
> IMO, if you want to help stamp out stereo-typing, of the poor Black
> Suppressed.
> I can't get the same job as the Next person.
> Then not supporting improper English, could very well be the first step.
> And why in Ghauds name would the School boards want to let a student
> continue learning a *consistent*-*Different* Language, that will do nothing
> but
> degrade themselves in the real world ????
LePheaux, I think you misunderstand what's going on. The effort was
to teach Standard English using ESL techniques so that the children
would learn Standard English.
The Trinker
--
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
<2841750706...@NTRIGUE.AS.CMU.EDU>...
|The thing that baffles me is why we _need_ remedial English for people
born
|in an English speaking country. This includes things like ebonics.
|
|I understand the need for classes to help non-English speakers become
|proficient enough to further their education, but WHY THE HELL are
native
|born US children unable to speak, read or write their native tongue?
Two words: Social Promotion.
We started graduating functional illiterates and innumerates when we
decided it was more important to preserve the child's self esteem and
keep them with their age mates than to actually teach them anything.
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com
> <<<>>>>
> To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
> Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is undecided.
> <<<>>>
Errrr, no. The expression "Jew them down" means to bargain (negotiatiate
a price) viciously and unfairly. It is a slur, implying that in
negotiation they act like a stereotypical "Jew". Haggle is another
neutral term for negotiating the price.
Ravan
--
Ravan Asteris rasteris / at \ rahul / dot \ net
(squish "/ and \" to make symbols like "&")
http://www.rahul.net/rasteris/
c.c.sb...@17.killspam.us.com
> In article <37F992DB...@his.com>,
> fla...@hers.com wrote:
> >
> >
> > pel...@centre.edu wrote:
> >
> > > The number of insulting terms and phrases that are frequently
> used
> > > to describe one's sub-group may be an indicator of discrimination.
> F'r
> > > example, think of how many insulting terms there are for the
> "unmarked
> > > catagory," white, middle-class males. (I can think of only two, but
> my
> > > brain is fried at the moment.)
> >
> > bigots.
> Way I learned it, "cracker" refers to lower-class whites, like
> "white trash" or "redneck." Bigotry is a concept deeply entwined with
> the other two, though.
> I was thinking of "honky," and, probably incorrectly, "goy." If I
> am remembering correctly, "goyim," is a semi-insulting term for generic
> non-Jews, but it was mostly used in Europe, where most folks are (duh)
> white.
There is also "bubba", "yuppie" for middle-class white males, and "shiksa"
for non-jewish females.
> > > Or the pagan.
> >
> > Now the only words I can think of to desribe pagans would be the
> > same used to anyone not following the religion of the bigot in
> question.
> Hmmm . . . yes and no. "Heathen," yeah, that just means, "You
> don't believe what I do and I am therefore resolved not to like you. I
> fart in your general direction." But I've heard pagans of all stripes
> refered to as Satanists, which is both inaccurate and insulting to most
> of them. I don't think I've heard "Satanists" applied to, fer example,
> the bits of Christianity that the more foaming-at-mouth preachers don't
> like. There are a number of ways that one can elaborate on the Satan
> motif to create new and interesting insults. Then there are also the
> more generic, less harmful labels along the lines of "flake," and
> "fruitcake," that also get pinned on pagans to an inordinate degree.
> 'Course, you can call anyone a fruitcake if you want (myself, I can
> practically taste the waves of nutfulness radiating from our good friend
> the Teletubby Man) but still . . .
And then there are the pagan related ones "fluff-bunny" & "white-lighter".
Are they bigotted? Maybe.
Also, what if you like fruitcake? Does the "you are what you eat" apply
then?
LePheaux
The effort was
>to teach Standard English using ESL techniques so that the children
>would learn Standard English.
<<<<>>>
I'm all for teaching the proper language , and I think it's a shame that
Ebonics has progressed as far as it has.
was even more amazed that it had made the ballots .;last year or so.
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
|> I am claiming it is a Bad Thing, as a matter of policy, to give
|> "Ebonics" the same credibility as Spanish or French, no matter how
|> acquired. The analogy is deeply flawed and the situations are not at
|> all parallel.
|
|Should we make it *more* pejorative than surfer speak, or Southernisms,
|or Yankeeisms?
Probably not, though Yankee and Southern dialects are generally not so
far diverged from the main stream as to be a problem.
|> Again, you're drawing a parallel between "Ebonics" -- which is, at
best,
|> a dialect of American English, no matter how self-consistent it is --
|> and people who have arrived in the USA from other countries. I don't
|> believe such an analogy is valid.
|
|Honestly, I think that if we require speakers of Black English to
|conform strictly to standard English, we should require it of
|speakers of other dialects of English, too.
We certainly should in English classes.
|Much like Irish English is an artifact of English being spoken
|originally by Gaelic speakers, Black English is an artifact of
|English being spoken by speakers of African languages.
Hold it right there! That is complete and utter PC hogwash.
The Black English, or "Ebonics," of the modern ghetto has no more than
coincidental relationship to any African language. To claim that modern
children are applying the grammar of languages (plural) their ancestors
forgot over 100 years ago is absurd.
My grandparents came from the former Soviet Union. I do not speak with
Russian grammar nor that of any other language of the former Soviet
states. Neither did my parents (who did speak Yiddish as well as
English -- the latter with no detectable accent).
Soprano's ancestry includes 9 generations of Hispanic Americans (that we
know of). She does not apply the rules of Spanish grammar to her
English and speaks with no detectable accent.
Are you _seriously_ claiming that modern ghetto kids are applying the
rules of Xhosa or Zulu or Bantu or ... ? Get real!
|*Everyone* in the U.S., ideally should speak a mutually intelligible
|language. English by its majority is the logical choice.
|
|The question is, should children who speak Black English be taught
|under the philosophy, "You speak a variant of English which is not
|standard, and the majority of this country understands Standard
|English, therefore for maximum chance of success, you should know
|how to speak Standard English", or should they be taught "your version
|of English is *BAD*"
Arguably, the latter follows from the former, whether explicitly stated
or not. Certainly, there is nothing inherently good about it.
BUT, you _must_ distinguish between the dialect being a bad thing to
rely upon and the person using it not being a bad person just because
they grew up with it.
|> Look at the lunacy some of the deaf extremists are perpetuating with
|> respect to chochlear implants. Imagine people claiming you are
|> "destroying their culture" by teaching standard English to "Ebonics"
|> speakers. That is every bit as absurd as worrying about the ecology
of
|> the Salton Sea -- and every bit as certain to happen.
|
|Cochlear implants, unfortunately, are another issue altogether.
|They do *not* at this time adequately bring most deaf people to
|the level of hearing people.
No one said they did, but to claim their very existence threatens "Deaf
Culture" with genocide and protest any further research into improving
them is lunacy. Yet people are doing just that.
John Palmer
<poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>John Palmer wrote in message <37fa5b51...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>|On Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:02:54 -0700, "The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)"
><poly...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>|>John Palmer wrote in message
><37f9df7c....@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>|>
>|>How and why they acquired their bad linguistic habits
>|
>| How and why they acquired their "bad linguistic habits" is
>|*EXACTLY* the same way that Spanish-, French-, etc., speaking people
>|learned their "bad linguistic habits", which include massive word
>|substitutions and different linguistic structures.
>|
>| If you're claiming that it's a "bad linguistic habit" to know
>|only Spanish when arriving in the US from a Spanish speaking country,
>|you have a really stupid definition of "bad linguistic habits".
>
>
>I am claiming it is a Bad Thing, as a matter of policy, to give
>"Ebonics" the same credibility as Spanish or French, no matter how
>acquired. The analogy is deeply flawed and the situations are not at
>all parallel.
Sigh. Of course not. Spanish speaker acquire their language
by being raised by Spanish speaking parents in a Spanish speaking
community.. "Ebonics" speakers acquire their language by being raised
by Ebonics speaking parents in an Ebonics speaking community.
No parallels there.
>|>is irrelevant
>|>except to social reformers, who should be working to correct those
>|>conditions rather than sanctioning them as an acceptable dialect.
>(And
>|>don't talk to me about "Black Culture" in this context. "Ebonics" as
>|>has much to do with culture as the Salton Sea has to do with ecology.)
>|
>| Absolutely. Whenever something grows among a group of people,
>|it's not part of culture. Ooops. Sorry, that's the very definition
>|of culture.
>
>And the Salton Sea[1] has an ecology -- a totally artificial one that
>should never have existed in the first place.
So blacks, despite living in often-ostracized communities
weren't supposed to depart from the sacred language of the people who
once owned them, eh?
Are you bothering to *THINK*, at all, about this issue?
>|>The plain fact is, if they want a job above the level of flipping
>|>burgers, they're going to have to learn to speak standard US English.
>|
>| Just as a native Spanish speaker has to learn standard US English
>|for the same reasons.
>|
>|>(Heck, if they want to interact with customers at a burger joint
>they're
>|>going to have to learn to speak US English.) To the extent that
>|>speaking "Ebonics" will retard their careers and lives (and, for most,
>|>it will),
>|
>| Really? When speaking to friends and family, it will retard
>|their careers and lives? ...
>
>Who said anything about speaking to friends and family (besides you)?
"To the extent that speaking Ebonics will retard their
careers and lives" were your words. It's clear that speaking Ebonics
doesn't retard their careers or lives at all; it's not being able to
speak standard English that will have an impact.
>When speaking to potential employers it bloody well will.
But it's not being able to speak Ebonics that causes that
problem; it's not being able to speak standard US English that causes
that problem.
> If they start
>their own business, when speaking to customers (or commercial bank
>managers) it bloody well will.
But it's not being able to speak Ebonics that causes that
prolem; it's not being able to speak standard US English that causes
that problem.
> Do you deny that?
A better question is "Do I accept your strawman as
meaningful?" and the answer is "no". The question is not "should
everyone in the US strive to learn standard US English if they wish to
succeed in the mainstream?"
The question is whether we'll accept Ebonics as a valid way to
speak among those who speak it. You have so far argued that it isn't
because it's not a good way to speak among people who *DON'T* speak
it.
>
>|... Gee, I know of a lot of bilingual people who
>|use one language with the general public, and use another with their
>|friends and families; are all of their lives and careers being held
>|back by this?
>
>Again, you're drawing a parallel between "Ebonics" -- which is, at best,
>a dialect of American English, no matter how self-consistent it is --
>and people who have arrived in the USA from other countries. I don't
>believe such an analogy is valid.
Why? Because everyone everywhere in the US speaks standard
English? Here's a hint: Ebonics couldn't have developed if that was
true.
>
>|> it is an affliction to be corrected and, yes, inferior to the
>|>mainstream.
>|
>| And for anyone who wondered why I brought up the issue, here's
>|a perfect example. A person speaking this way has an affliction -
>|even if they know how to speak perfect standard US English, and aren't
>|even speaking to Polymath.
>
>If they know how to speak perfect standard US English, I don't care what
>else they know how to speak. "Ebonics" is an affliction as long as it's
>the only thing they speak _and that's treated as an acceptable
>condition_.
Show me anyone, anywhere, who has suggested that Ebonics should
be the only communication method these people have, and I'll grant
that you're not bullshitting and building strawmen. Until that point,
you seem to have made up your mind and don't want to be confused with
irritating facts that challenge your prejudices.
>As soon as you grant "Ebonics" the cachet of a foreign language, you're
>going to have loons crawling out of the woodwork demanding accomodations
>be made for it and claiming unfair discrimination if you don't make
>those accomodations.
The slippery slope is not a valid method of argument, and you
know it damn well, because because I'll guarantee you've challenged
it in gun control debates.
>Look at the lunacy some of the deaf extremists are perpetuating with
>respect to chochlear implants. Imagine people claiming you are
>"destroying their culture" by teaching standard English to "Ebonics"
>speakers. That is every bit as absurd as worrying about the ecology of
>the Salton Sea -- and every bit as certain to happen.
What *WOULD* destroy the culture of Ebonics would be idiots
like you insisting that it's *NOT* culturally created and instead
insisting it's just "English, but spoken wrong", and insisting that it
must be wiped out, rather than having the differences taught.
>|>The fact that it is internally consistent is irrelevant.
>|>The delusions of psychotics are often internally consistent, but we
>|>don't advocate accommodating the world to them.
>|
>| As are the beliefs of many religious groups, but we don't tell
>|them that their religious beliefs are wrong, and must be changed to
>|fit the mainstream.
>In some cases we do.
Strange; I thought we had the First Amendment that was supposed
to keep us from changing people's religious beliefs (as opposed to,
for example, preventing certain actions taken because of those
religious beliefs).
> In most cases, religious beliefs are a private
>matter unless the believer chooses to make them public.
So is the method one chooses to communicate with family and
friends in a given community.
--
Everything I needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten. Like: we only
truly die when we run out of love. Strangely, though, giving love replenishes
our supply as much or more than accepting it does.
The Trinker
"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
>
> The Trinker wrote in message
> <37FA706B...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>...
> |"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
>
> |> I am claiming it is a Bad Thing, as a matter of policy, to give
> |> "Ebonics" the same credibility as Spanish or French, no matter how
> |> acquired. The analogy is deeply flawed and the situations are not at
> |> all parallel.
> |
> |Should we make it *more* pejorative than surfer speak, or Southernisms,
> |or Yankeeisms?
>
> Probably not, though Yankee and Southern dialects are generally not so
> far diverged from the main stream as to be a problem.
Really, Polymath? Again, are you so sure? May I ask what your
background in linguistics is?
> |> Again, you're drawing a parallel between "Ebonics" -- which is, at
> best,
> |> a dialect of American English, no matter how self-consistent it is --
> |> and people who have arrived in the USA from other countries. I don't
> |> believe such an analogy is valid.
> |
> |Honestly, I think that if we require speakers of Black English to
> |conform strictly to standard English, we should require it of
> |speakers of other dialects of English, too.
>
> We certainly should in English classes.
And in other classes?
> |Much like Irish English is an artifact of English being spoken
> |originally by Gaelic speakers, Black English is an artifact of
> |English being spoken by speakers of African languages.
>
> Hold it right there! That is complete and utter PC hogwash.
>
> The Black English, or "Ebonics," of the modern ghetto has no more than
> coincidental relationship to any African language. To claim that modern
> children are applying the grammar of languages (plural) their ancestors
> forgot over 100 years ago is absurd.
They are not applying that grammar *because* it came from Africa,
they are applying it because they learned it as a result of growing
up in a population that originally developed its English from
a base of African languages. Just as Irish English has roots in
Gaelic, even if the current generation of Irish barely speak Gaelic.
> My grandparents came from the former Soviet Union. I do not speak with
> Russian grammar nor that of any other language of the former Soviet
> states. Neither did my parents (who did speak Yiddish as well as
> English -- the latter with no detectable accent).
Because you didn't grow up in a Russian speaking ghetto, and were
educated primarily around standard English speakers, yes?
> Soprano's ancestry includes 9 generations of Hispanic Americans (that we
> know of). She does not apply the rules of Spanish grammar to her
> English and speaks with no detectable accent.
I would assume that Soprano is relatively assimilated, then.
> Are you _seriously_ claiming that modern ghetto kids are applying the
> rules of Xhosa or Zulu or Bantu or ... ? Get real!
No, they're applying what they learned from their parents and
peers. But there are definitely constructions which can be traced
back to the original creole/pidgin that their slave ancestors
developed.
> |*Everyone* in the U.S., ideally should speak a mutually intelligible
> |language. English by its majority is the logical choice.
> |
> |The question is, should children who speak Black English be taught
> |under the philosophy, "You speak a variant of English which is not
> |standard, and the majority of this country understands Standard
> |English, therefore for maximum chance of success, you should know
> |how to speak Standard English", or should they be taught "your version
> |of English is *BAD*"
>
> Arguably, the latter follows from the former, whether explicitly stated
> or not. Certainly, there is nothing inherently good about it.
Are you so sure?
> BUT, you _must_ distinguish between the dialect being a bad thing to
> rely upon and the person using it not being a bad person just because
> they grew up with it.
The dialect is not a bad thing, it is a thing which keeps one
from being able to be hired for mainstream jobs.
Hell, I think that social workers who deal primarily with Black
English speakers should learn Black English.
> |> Look at the lunacy some of the deaf extremists are perpetuating with
> |> respect to chochlear implants. Imagine people claiming you are
> |> "destroying their culture" by teaching standard English to "Ebonics"
> |> speakers. That is every bit as absurd as worrying about the ecology
> of
> |> the Salton Sea -- and every bit as certain to happen.
> |
> |Cochlear implants, unfortunately, are another issue altogether.
> |They do *not* at this time adequately bring most deaf people to
> |the level of hearing people.
>
> No one said they did, but to claim their very existence threatens "Deaf
> Culture" with genocide and protest any further research into improving
> them is lunacy. Yet people are doing just that.
I think if you knew more about the history of Deaf culture in the U.S.
you'd understand their viewpoint a little less histrionically than you
do.
c.c.sb...@56.killspam.us.com
Organization: a2i network
Distribution:
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
Hmmmmm. I guess I consider Black English ("Ebonics" sounds like a
disease) to be an extreme dialect of American English, sort of like
Kentish is to UK English. It is fine for communicating with people from
your own neighborhood, but not for dealing with the country at large or
official establishments. Speakers of both would need some tutoring to
handle the "dominant" standard for pronunciation and grammar.
LePheaux
>> To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
>> Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is undecided.
>> <<<>>>
>
pretty
>reasonable. Could you please confirm that you used the words "just another
>term..." innocently, to mean an alternative, rather than an ignorant (I
don't
>mean that harshly) acceptance of the phrase? To Jew someone, IMO, is
definitely
>racial and demeaning, not a standard alternative to the word "barter".
>-Keez (I'm leaving a BOYC at the Bar on the assumption that it *was*
innocent)>(Oh...sorry if the above is a bit rambly, I'm quite tired)
<<<>>>>
One of us is lost here. prolly me. again.
What I said is it is a term/ phrase/ saying. commonly used in and around
Bazaars / Markets / garage sales etc...etc...
I'm not sure what you mean by Ignorant, Harshly or acceptance.
I wasn't trying to slander . and have never used the term derogatorily.
In all the different places I've lived in the States, the term is pretty
much accepted as an alternative to the word Barter. Granted I have the
common courtesy to not use the word while buying Kosher pickles on the
street corner :) much as I don't use the term Nigger rigged. when inspecting
projects on the jobsites, I use Mickey Moused, when I see cheesy
substandard work.
(no offense's intended, please do not take the example out of context)
I will openly accept what you say , as to it being used as such.
LePheaux
Just say KNOW.. another cloistered soul who has always taken things at face
value, With out trying to read Racism. or suppression into it.
Sorry to have kept you up. I'll have a Grolsch, and await your RE.
John Palmer
<bg...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>The thing that baffles me is why we _need_ remedial English for people born
>in an English speaking country. This includes things like ebonics.
Because people learn language from their parents and other
people in their communities. If (in the case of Ebonics) everyone
speaks a dialect with different word usage and so forth, this is what
a child will learn as being "natural".
The idea behind Ebonics is that it is as natural to children
raised in certain communities as standard US English as spoken in
white areas of Philadelphia, PA is to me.
That's where I learned how to speak; that's where my first
patterns of language was developed. It is from there that I've
acquired a love of language, and of finding ways to put my thoughts
into words.
If I had learned a way that was nonstandard, I'd have to learn
the standard, certainly. But that wouldn't mean that what I learned
was "wrong", merely that it was different from the standard.
It would be "wrong" if I was the only person who used
"Floopish" when I meant "up" and "Picklick" when I meant "down", but
if everyone in my community used those words, those words would have
the meaning of "up" and "down".
I'd need to be taught that most people outside of that
community won't understand Floopish or Picklick, but that doesn't make
those words "bad" or "wrong", any more than it's wrong for me to use
"jelly" to mean a fruit-juice based spread instead of gelatin (or than
it's wrong for someone from England to use "jelly" to mean gelatin
instead of a fruit-juice based spread.).
LePheaux
>
>They are not applying that grammar *because* it came from Africa,
>they are applying it because they learned it as a result of growing
>up in a population that originally developed its English from
>a base of African languages. Just as Irish English has roots in
>Gaelic, even if the current generation of Irish barely speak Gaelic.
>
<<<<>>>>
But I think Ebonics came from guttural usage of English, with no African
history whatsoever,
Cajun is a more true sense of language adaptation. with great deals of
French Canadian, and English.
I really haven't been around Ebonics much since I left LA. But from what I
did learn first hand, was butchered English. I don't know any African words.
But I don't think Dis and Dat , and sprung, are African.
Noah Singman
> Might I point out that this is exactly the question I felt should
>be added, and the reasoning behind it. Rather than being accepted as
>"what these people have heard and grown up with, and what they have
>used as naturally as most people use standard English", it's dismissed
>as "substandard English" rather than "a different dialect".
> Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing from
>US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
>inferior to the mainstream".
> The statement is made "We must fix the deficiency", rather than
>"we must teach the differences".
"It may be a different dialect, but it is still substandard English. It may
be a pattern of language differing from US mainstream, but it is still
inferior to the mainstream. And we must teach the differences in order to
fix the deficiency."
"There are doubtless speakers of 'black English' who do know and use
standard English under certain circumstances. Black interest magazines such
as Ebony and Essence have discussed the phenomenon of some black
professionals who speak 'street' at home, and professionally at work. I've
seen it with some of my friends and in-laws. That is their prerogative, of
course."
"But students who do not know standard English are educationally
handicapped. They never studied 'black English' in any kind of school; it's
a result of NOT learning, not a result of learning something 'different.'
And failure to correct that poor English merely because the students are
black, and many blacks speak that way, is wrong."
Noah
The Trinker
Noah Singman wrote:
>
> John Palmer wrote:
> > Might I point out that this is exactly the question I felt should
> >be added, and the reasoning behind it. Rather than being accepted as
> >"what these people have heard and grown up with, and what they have
> >used as naturally as most people use standard English", it's dismissed
> >as "substandard English" rather than "a different dialect".
>
> > Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing from
> >US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
> >inferior to the mainstream".
>
> > The statement is made "We must fix the deficiency", rather than
> >"we must teach the differences".
>
> "It may be a different dialect, but it is still substandard English. It may
> be a pattern of language differing from US mainstream, but it is still
> inferior to the mainstream. And we must teach the differences in order to
> fix the deficiency."
Why necessarily "inferior" ?
> "There are doubtless speakers of 'black English' who do know and use
> standard English under certain circumstances. Black interest magazines such
> as Ebony and Essence have discussed the phenomenon of some black
> professionals who speak 'street' at home, and professionally at work. I've
> seen it with some of my friends and in-laws. That is their prerogative, of
> course."
It's quite common in many other cultures. It's codified into Japanese.
One *never* speaks to family in the same words/grammar that one uses
for business.
> "But students who do not know standard English are educationally
> handicapped. They never studied 'black English' in any kind of school; it's
> a result of NOT learning, not a result of learning something 'different.'
> And failure to correct that poor English merely because the students are
> black, and many blacks speak that way, is wrong."
Failure to teach an essential survival skill is wrong. I don't
think that makes their use of nonstandard English at home wrong
or inferior.
The Trinker
who learned standard English at school, and only learned to speak
Colloquial English later.
The Trinker
LePheaux wrote:
>
> >> <<<>>>>
> >> To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
> >> Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is undecided.
> >> <<<>>>
> >
> >Susan's right. Now, LePheaux, for what you know of me in this Place, I'm
> pretty
> >reasonable. Could you please confirm that you used the words "just another
> >term..." innocently, to mean an alternative, rather than an ignorant (I
> don't
> >mean that harshly) acceptance of the phrase? To Jew someone, IMO, is
> definitely
> >racial and demeaning, not a standard alternative to the word "barter".
> >-Keez (I'm leaving a BOYC at the Bar on the assumption that it *was*
> innocent)>(Oh...sorry if the above is a bit rambly, I'm quite tired)
> <<<>>>>
> Huh ?
> One of us is lost here. prolly me. again.
> What I said is it is a term/ phrase/ saying. commonly used in and around
> Bazaars / Markets / garage sales etc...etc...
> I'm not sure what you mean by Ignorant, Harshly or acceptance.
> I wasn't trying to slander . and have never used the term derogatorily.
I think essentially, LePheaux, whether or not you meant that term
as derogatory toward Jews, the term has clear roots in anti-Semitism,
and should be avoided.
As a datapoint, I've only heard this from people outside of Los Angeles,
specifically to mean stingy and excessive bargaining.
> In all the different places I've lived in the States, the term is pretty
> much accepted as an alternative to the word Barter. Granted I have the
> common courtesy to not use the word while buying Kosher pickles on the
> street corner :) much as I don't use the term Nigger rigged. when inspecting
> projects on the jobsites, I use Mickey Moused, when I see cheesy
> substandard work.
> (no offense's intended, please do not take the example out of context)
>
> I will openly accept what you say , as to it being used as such.
The Trinker
The Trinker
LePheaux wrote:
>
> >
> >They are not applying that grammar *because* it came from Africa,
> >they are applying it because they learned it as a result of growing
> >up in a population that originally developed its English from
> >a base of African languages. Just as Irish English has roots in
> >Gaelic, even if the current generation of Irish barely speak Gaelic.
> >
> <<<<>>>>
> I May be wrong here.
> But I think Ebonics came from guttural usage of English, with no African
> history whatsoever,
> Cajun is a more true sense of language adaptation. with great deals of
> French Canadian, and English.
> I really haven't been around Ebonics much since I left LA. But from what I
> did learn first hand, was butchered English. I don't know any African words.
> But I don't think Dis and Dat , and sprung, are African.
actually, those phonemic rules *are* from African languages.
Looks like I should dig up my references on this, after all.
Lee S. Billings
LePh...@worldnet.att.net says...
>
>>> <<<>>>>
>>> To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
>>> Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is
undecided.
>>> <<<>>>
>>
>>Susan's right. Now, LePheaux, for what you know of me in this Place,
I'm
>pretty
>>reasonable. Could you please confirm that you used the words "just
another
>>term..." innocently, to mean an alternative, rather than an ignorant
(I
>don't
>>mean that harshly) acceptance of the phrase? To Jew someone, IMO, is
>definitely
>>racial and demeaning, not a standard alternative to the word
"barter".
>>-Keez (I'm leaving a BOYC at the Bar on the assumption that it *was*
>innocent)>(Oh...sorry if the above is a bit rambly, I'm quite tired)
><<<>>>>
>Huh ?
> One of us is lost here. prolly me. again.
> What I said is it is a term/ phrase/ saying. commonly used in and
around
>Bazaars / Markets / garage sales etc...etc...
>
>pretty much accepted as an alternative to the word Barter.
I don't know where you've lived, or what class of people you associate
with, but I was taught that the term was like "nigger", something that
only trashy people would say. And I have *never* heard it "commonly
accepted" as an alternative for "barter" or "haggle", anywhere I've
ever lived.
John Palmer
wrote:
>John Palmer wrote:
>> Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing from
>>US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
>>inferior to the mainstream".
>
>> The statement is made "We must fix the deficiency", rather than
>>"we must teach the differences".
>
>"It may be a different dialect, but it is still substandard English.
Cajun folks sometimes burn things intentionally. Burning is
a bad idea in mainstream cooking. "Cajun food may taste good to cajun
folks, but it's still substandard cooking" is a false statement.
It's a different dialect that doesn't follow the rules of
standard English.
>"But students who do not know standard English are educationally
>handicapped. They never studied 'black English' in any kind of school; it's
>a result of NOT learning, not a result of learning something 'different.'
Er, Noah? Please, please, *PLEASE* tell me you didn't just
say that all learning only occurs in educational institutions. (Okay,
you did say it, but please tell me you didn't MEAN that.)
>And failure to correct that poor English merely because the students are
>black, and many blacks speak that way, is wrong."
And no one ever suggested not teaching standard English to
*ANY* student. . . so why raise the issue?
LePheaux
>
>I think essentially, LePheaux, whether or not you meant that term
>as derogatory toward Jews,
<<<<>>>
Now goddammit Trink. I said I have never used it derogatorily. and I meant
it.
take it or leave it. just don't mis-quote it.
<<<<>>>>
the term has clear roots in anti-Semitism,
>and should be avoided.
<<<>>>
untill coming here to Callahans, no one had ever told me it was Derogitory.
even an X-Girlfriend. Debbie Grassberg, who called herself a JAP.
<<<><>>>
>
>As a datapoint, I've only heard this from people outside of Los Angeles,
>specifically to mean stingy and excessive bargaining.
>
<<<>>>
I'm from LA. and have family history damn near back to the beginning of LA.
I've heard it in LA. Said it in LA.
Austin Ziegler
> The Trinker wrote in message
>| "The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
>| Much like Irish English is an artifact of English being spoken
>| originally by Gaelic speakers, Black English is an artifact of
>| English being spoken by speakers of African languages.
> Hold it right there! That is complete and utter PC hogwash.
>
> The Black English, or "Ebonics," of the modern ghetto has no more than
> coincidental relationship to any African language. To claim that modern
> children are applying the grammar of languages (plural) their ancestors
> forgot over 100 years ago is absurd.
"I guess you've never heard Gullah. BAE is right similar to Gullah, a
language (or dialect) that has been spoken pretty much continuously in
parts of South Carolina since early slave days -- though I will state
that it's highly unlikely that BAE speakers will understand Gullah off
the bat. Their ancestors didn't forget languages."
>| The question is, should children who speak Black English be taught
>| under the philosophy, "You speak a variant of English which is not
>| standard, and the majority of this country understands Standard
>| English, therefore for maximum chance of success, you should know
>| how to speak Standard English", or should they be taught "your version
>| of English is *BAD*"
> Arguably, the latter follows from the former, whether explicitly stated
> or not. Certainly, there is nothing inherently good about it.
> BUT, you _must_ distinguish between the dialect being a bad thing to
> rely upon and the person using it not being a bad person just because
> they grew up with it.
"No, the latter doesn't follow from the former. The former is a
statement of reality about the nation in which one lives. The latter is
a value judgement that linguists aren't willing to make. It's rather
like the snobbery of the Quebecois over their dialect of French (and of
the French over their dialect). Both are excellent at carrying
information. But a value judgement that one is 'BAD' is silly in the
extreme."
-f
--
austin ziegler * fant0me(at)the(dash)wire(d0t)c0m * Ni bhionn an rath ach
ICQ#25o49818 (H) * aziegler(at)s0lect(d0t)c0m * mar a mbionn an smacht
ICQ#21o88733 (W) * fant0me526(at)yah00(d0t)c0m * (There is no Luck
AIM Fant0me526 *-s/0/o/g--------&&--------s/o/0/g-* without Discipline)
Toronto.ON.ca * I speak for myself alone *-----------------------
PGP *** 7FDA ECE7 6C30 2356 17D3 17A1 C030 F921 82EF E7F8 *** 6.5.1
The Trinker
LePheaux wrote:
>
> >
> >I think essentially, LePheaux, whether or not you meant that term
> >as derogatory toward Jews,
>
> <<<<>>>
> Now goddammit Trink. I said I have never used it derogatorily. and I meant
> it.
> take it or leave it. just don't mis-quote it.
> <<<<>>>>
My apologies. Allow me to rephrase: "Even though you meant that
term not in a derogatory manner..."
> the term has clear roots in anti-Semitism,
> >and should be avoided.
> <<<>>>
> untill coming here to Callahans, no one had ever told me it was Derogitory.
> even an X-Girlfriend. Debbie Grassberg, who called herself a JAP.
> <<<><>>>
And an FOB Japanese person probably wouldn't recognize "jap"
as a derogatory term, but I do.
> >As a datapoint, I've only heard this from people outside of Los Angeles,
> >specifically to mean stingy and excessive bargaining.
> >
> <<<>>>
> I'm from LA. and have family history damn near back to the beginning of LA.
> I've heard it in LA. Said it in LA.
LA is a big place, and I would suggest that perhaps we've had
different experiences in different times.
The Trinker
who's heard some extraordinarily stupid and ignorant things in
LA, too, but it doesn't make it *true*.
Austin Ziegler
"Would the thrust of the deaf issue be that they are afraid that deaf folks
will be 'forced' to get cochlear implants?
"Because that raises some very interesting questions in and of itself."
Austin Ziegler
> John Palmer wrote:
>> Might I point out that this is exactly the question I felt should
>> be added, and the reasoning behind it. Rather than being accepted as
>> "what these people have heard and grown up with, and what they have
>> used as naturally as most people use standard English", it's dismissed
>> as "substandard English" rather than "a different dialect".
>> Rather than treating it as "a pattern of language differing from
>> US mainstream", it's treated as "a pattern of language specifically
>> inferior to the mainstream".
>> The statement is made "We must fix the deficiency", rather than
>> "we must teach the differences".
> "It may be a different dialect, but it is still substandard English.
> It may be a pattern of language differing from US mainstream, but it
> is still inferior to the mainstream. And we must teach the
> differences in order to fix the deficiency."
"This is false. Unless you'd care to whip out your linguistics
credentials (and not merely 'English speaker') to support your
assertion that it is 'inferior.' It is NOT inferior; it is different. It is
also non-applicable in the mainstream.
"In the Ozarks, you'll occasionally see a structure like:
John ate and Mary.
"This is *perfectly legal* and is not inferior to the SAE construct of:
John and Mary ate.
"Just because it's not inferior doesn't meant that it wouldn't be a
regionalism or dialectic difference that causes problems outside of the
Ozarks."
> "But students who do not know standard English are educationally
> handicapped. They never studied 'black English' in any kind of school; it's
> a result of NOT learning, not a result of learning something 'different.'
> And failure to correct that poor English merely because the students are
> black, and many blacks speak that way, is wrong."
"I wish you would use correct terminology here.
"John, the Trinker, and I are using technical terms -- linguistic
technical terms. Just because you and the Polymath have the hubris to
judge the merits of a dialect as a dialect (instead of its utility in
the mainstream) doesn't mean that you're right. At all."
Austin Ziegler
>> They are not applying that grammar *because* it came from Africa,
>> they are applying it because they learned it as a result of growing
>> up in a population that originally developed its English from
>> a base of African languages. Just as Irish English has roots in
>> Gaelic, even if the current generation of Irish barely speak Gaelic.
> <<<<>>>>
"You are."
> But I think Ebonics came from guttural usage of English, with no African
> history whatsoever,
"False. You'd have to have heard Gullah and other pidgins that
developed some time ago (and some which have died) to understand how
BAE came around."
> Cajun is a more true sense of language adaptation. with great deals of
> French Canadian, and English.
"It's a creole approaching language status. It's not even a dialect.
BAE ('Ebonics') has not been claimed to be a different *language* as
much as it is a significantly different enough dialect to require
ESL-like classes for 'native' speakers."
Shannon West
John Palmer <jpal...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:37fa7fea.421037800@news...
> On Tue, 05 Oct 1999 17:30:21 -0400, "Bruce E. Golightly"
> <bg...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
>
> >The thing that baffles me is why we _need_ remedial English for people
born
> >in an English speaking country. This includes things like ebonics.
>
> Because people learn language from their parents and other
> people in their communities. If (in the case of Ebonics) everyone
> speaks a dialect with different word usage and so forth, this is what
> a child will learn as being "natural".
Thank you, John. I was just about to get on my high horse again. "Hey,
Sugar (that's my horse), how'd you get in here, and where'd you score the
pot?"
> The idea behind Ebonics is that it is as natural to children
> raised in certain communities as standard US English as spoken in
> white areas of Philadelphia, PA is to me.
>
> That's where I learned how to speak; that's where my first
> patterns of language was developed. It is from there that I've
> acquired a love of language, and of finding ways to put my thoughts
> into words.
>
> If I had learned a way that was nonstandard, I'd have to learn
> the standard, certainly. But that wouldn't mean that what I learned
> was "wrong", merely that it was different from the standard.
>
> It would be "wrong" if I was the only person who used
> "Floopish" when I meant "up" and "Picklick" when I meant "down", but
> if everyone in my community used those words, those words would have
> the meaning of "up" and "down".
>
> I'd need to be taught that most people outside of that
> community won't understand Floopish or Picklick, but that doesn't make
> those words "bad" or "wrong", any more than it's wrong for me to use
> "jelly" to mean a fruit-juice based spread instead of gelatin (or than
> it's wrong for someone from England to use "jelly" to mean gelatin
> instead of a fruit-juice based spread.).
And let's not forget that teaching in a new dialect to the child puts
him/her at an immediate disadvantage to other children in the world.
Certainly, they need to learn SAE to get by, but there is no reason not to
also teach Black English (BE) as it is a perfectly valid dialect of English.
--
MorphWench ~ Gratch (Linguist to the stars - the stars in my head that is)
"I never learned nothin' from playin' it safe
I say fate should not tempt me"
Mary Chapin Carpenter - I Take My Chances
I p&e by default. Please post & e-mail anything you want me to see.
Thanks.
LePheaux
>
>My apologies. Allow me to rephrase: "Even though you meant that
>term not in a derogatory manner..."
>
>And an FOB Japanese person probably wouldn't recognize "jap"
>as a derogatory term, but I do.
>
>>LA is a big place, and I would suggest that perhaps we've had
>different experiences in different times.
>
>The Trinker
>who's heard some extraordinarily stupid and ignorant things in
>LA, too, but it doesn't make it *true*.
>--
<<<<>>>>
I think that may be a good way to describe the scenarios going forth.
just different Circles. and different experiences.
and yup to the strangeness in LA. anything for everyone :)
The Trinker
Shannon West wrote:
(Unless we stop teaching in Southern and Yankee and New Jersey and
other dialects, I think teaching in BE is equivalent, no?)
The Trinker
The Trinker
al...@cornell.edu wrote:
>
> In article <37FA7A50...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>, The Trinker <k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
>
> >> |Should we make it *more* pejorative than surfer speak, or Southernisms,
> >> |or Yankeeisms?
> >>
> >> Probably not, though Yankee and Southern dialects are generally not so
> >> far diverged from the main stream as to be a problem.
> >
> >Really, Polymath? Again, are you so sure? May I ask what your
> >background in linguistics is?
>
> You know that sounds as though you are suggesting that if he isn't a linguist
> he couldn't possibly know whether a person with a southern dialect would be
> intelligable to someone with a northern one.
Intelligibility in this case, I would suggest comes from familiarity.
There are significant differences, however.
> I'm not a pilot but I know a plane crash when I see one.
Yankee and Southern dialects actually do have significant divergence
from Standard English. There are things which are said by Southerners
which are misunderstood by Northerners.
> >> |Honestly, I think that if we require speakers of Black English to
> >> |conform strictly to standard English, we should require it of
> >> |speakers of other dialects of English, too.
> >>
> >> We certainly should in English classes.
> >
> >And in other classes?
>
> Yes. One of the most damaging things a school (in the US) can do to someone is
> fail to see that he or she is fluent in mainstream American-English.
>
> This includes Ebonics, and such ESL programs as failed to teach English but
> left the students in a cultural ghetto.
So *all* classes should be taught in Standard English, and we should
not allow children to respond in Black English, nor imperfect English,
and make all classes about learning Standard English, and train all
instructors in this teaching method?
Funny, that's how an ESL intensive program works.
> >> BUT, you _must_ distinguish between the dialect being a bad thing to
> >> rely upon and the person using it not being a bad person just because
> >> they grew up with it.
> >
> >The dialect is not a bad thing, it is a thing which keeps one
> >from being able to be hired for mainstream jobs.
> >
> >Hell, I think that social workers who deal primarily with Black
> >English speakers should learn Black English.
>
> How would that help them? One more reason not to learn mainstream English.
For the same reason that people should be able to speak Spanish
to help Spanish speakers, or East Timorese.
LePheaux
>
>I don't know where you've lived, or what class of people you associate
>with, but I was taught that the term was like "nigger", something that
>only trashy people would say. And I have *never* heard it "commonly
>accepted" as an alternative for "barter" or "haggle", anywhere I've
>ever lived.
>
<<<>>>
And Honestly, Till I started frequenting alt. C The term To Jew in a deal,
had never been Mentioned as a slur, in any of the classes of people I've
been around.
As far as to what Class of People I've been in and around,
Both upper and some serious trash.
Depends on any given day. I can be dealing with the Range Rover.
General Super for Baugh, and the next Minute, a day Labor Bum.
.
The people I deal with are all pretty secure in them selves.
and have grown past the stage of taking things to heart. or at least there
Hot buttons are Points of direct insult/s .which in a highly populated area
of Jewish residents, could be a wide Variety of generally accepted terms, or
so it seams.
I would like to mention that I haven't said I was jewing anybody, or trying
to sling slurs, My apologies to those of you who have mis-taken my words for
insults.
I shall go back to not participating in serious points of Discussions.
Susan Cohen
LePheaux wrote:
> Re-sent>
>
> >> "Jew him down" meaning to act as a tough and possibly unfair negotiator,
> >> is still in use.
> >
> >Actually, it means to nag someone into a lower price.
>
> <<<>>>>
> To Jew someone, is just another term for Bartering.
No. It's a *derogatory* term for "negotiating", with an unspoken
insinuation that the person doing the "Jewing" is unreasonable.
> Not to Nag, or be unfair. But to negotiate a price that is undecided.
But to be unrelentingly hard-nosed. WHich to many sounds like nagging, or
worse.
> <<<>>>
>
> >I can;t think of any. "Cracker" I always thought was for generic white
> >bigots.
> ><<<>>>
> Doesn't have anything to do with Bigotry.
> It's a common term from the South, in reference to any white person.
It means "someone who used to crack the whip."
> Also used to describe a native of several southern states.
> The term Cracker, was actually invented by whites in Georgia.
> My Wifeys Mother originated from Georgia. and calls herself a Georgia
> Cracker.
> The southern Blacks, prolly not understanding the usage of the word,
> use the word in a derogatory way to signify a White person.
This is not at all what I've heard.
Susan Cohen
LePheaux wrote:
> >
> >I think essentially, LePheaux, whether or not you meant that term
> >as derogatory toward Jews,
>
> <<<<>>>
> Now goddammit Trink. I said I have never used it derogatorily. and I meant
> it.
> take it or leave it. just don't mis-quote it.
> <<<<>>>>
>
> the term has clear roots in anti-Semitism,
> >and should be avoided.
> <<<>>>
> untill coming here to Callahans, no one had ever told me it was Derogitory.
> even an X-Girlfriend. Debbie Grassberg, who called herself a JAP.
Which ought to tell you something about her, right there.
> <<<><>>>
> >
> >As a datapoint, I've only heard this from people outside of Los Angeles,
> >specifically to mean stingy and excessive bargaining.
> >
> <<<>>>
> I'm from LA. and have family history damn near back to the beginning of LA.
> I've heard it in LA. Said it in LA.
What I can't believe is that you couldn't miss that it was derogatory.
Susan
Susan Cohen
The Trinker wrote:
> LePheaux wrote:
> >
> > untill coming here to Callahans, no one had ever told me it was Derogitory.
> > even an X-Girlfriend. Debbie Grassberg, who called herself a JAP.
> > <<<><>>>
>
> And an FOB Japanese person probably wouldn't recognize "jap"
> as a derogatory term, but I do.
In the context in which LePheaux and his self-hating ex-girlfriend used it,
it means "Jewish American Princess." A spoiled little rich girl (no matter
how old she is) who is at best nominally Jewish, whose whiny materialism
is, by her visibility, imputed to Jews by the ignorant or the bigoted.
Susan
Susan Cohen
"Lee S. Billings" wrote:
> In article <37FA8CF3...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com>,
> k...@vincent-tanaka.spamtrap.com says...
>
> > It really is a racist saying, hand-in-hand
> >with "to Jew someone down".)
>
> So you're not the only one who sees the latter as offensive.
Until I read LePheaux's post, I didn't know anyone could ever think it
wasn't.
Susan
The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)
|"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
|> |"The Polymath (Jerry Hollombe)" wrote:
|>
|> |> "Ebonics" the same credibility as Spanish or French, no matter how
|> |> acquired. The analogy is deeply flawed and the situations are not
at
|> |> all parallel.
|> |
|> |Should we make it *more* pejorative than surfer speak, or
Southernisms,
|> |or Yankeeisms?
|>
|> Probably not, though Yankee and Southern dialects are generally not
so
|> far diverged from the main stream as to be a problem.
|
Yes.
|... May I ask what your background in linguistics is?
Yes, you may.
(Probably about the same as most people here -- educated layperson.)
|> |> Again, you're drawing a parallel between "Ebonics" -- which is, at
|> best,
|> |> a dialect of American English, no matter how self-consistent it
is --
|> |> and people who have arrived in the USA from other countries. I
don't
|> |> believe such an analogy is valid.
|> |
|> |Honestly, I think that if we require speakers of Black English to
|> |conform strictly to standard English, we should require it of
|> |speakers of other dialects of English, too.
|>
|> We certainly should in English classes.
|
|And in other classes?
So long as they can communicate their math ability adequately, I don't
see that accent or grammar should have anything to do with grades in
calculus (for example). Heck, I've had calculus _teachers_ who barely
spoke English (which may have contributed to my poor performance, but
that's another rant).
|> |Much like Irish English is an artifact of English being spoken
|> |originally by Gaelic speakers, Black English is an artifact of
|> |English being spoken by speakers of African languages.
|>
|> Hold it right there! That is complete and utter PC hogwash.
|>
|> The Black English, or "Ebonics," of the modern ghetto has no more
than
|> coincidental relationship to any African language. To claim that
modern
|> children are applying the grammar of languages (plural) their
ancestors
|> forgot over 100 years ago is absurd.
|
|They are not applying that grammar *because* it came from Africa,
|they are applying it because they learned it as a result of growing
|up in a population that originally developed its English from
|a base of African languages. Just as Irish English has roots in
|Gaelic, even if the current generation of Irish barely speak Gaelic.
Again, hogwash. Aren't you the one who was bemoaning the fact that the
original Black slaves were snatched from their native culture, unable to
bring any along? That any remnants of that culture were crushed here,
leaving them with none?
I doubt you'll find many third or more generation Irish speaking with
Gaelic accents in the USA. To propose that ghetto kids raised on US
television are using the grammar of Zulu in their speech is patently
absurd.
|> My grandparents came from the former Soviet Union. I do not speak
with
|> Russian grammar nor that of any other language of the former Soviet
|> states. Neither did my parents (who did speak Yiddish as well as
|> English -- the latter with no detectable accent).
|
|Because you didn't grow up in a Russian speaking ghetto, and were
|educated primarily around standard English speakers, yes?
I grew up in Jewish neighborhoods (the very orgin of the word "ghetto").
I was surrounded by people speaking Yiddish, including my parents and
relatives. I was sent to Hebrew school to learn to speak Hebrew for
most of the first 13 years of my life.
However, I was _educated_ in the LAUSD (back when LAUSD schools were
still doing education instead of PC babysitting). In _public schools_
(still in said Jewish ghettos) I was taught standard English grammar and
usage. That's what I speak and why I speak it. That's what I expect
the products of our schools to speak.
|> Soprano's ancestry includes 9 generations of Hispanic Americans (that
we
|> know of). She does not apply the rules of Spanish grammar to her
|> English and speaks with no detectable accent.
|
|I would assume that Soprano is relatively assimilated, then.
My point.
|> Are you _seriously_ claiming that modern ghetto kids are applying the
|> rules of Xhosa or Zulu or Bantu or ... ? Get real!
|
|No, they're applying what they learned from their parents and
|peers. ...
So, your moving the problem back a generation. I still say it's
rubbish. What they learn from their peers is bad English grammar, no
matter how self-consistent it is.
|... But there are definitely constructions which can be traced
|back to the original creole/pidgin that their slave ancestors
|developed.
Oh, so _now_ their imitating language constructs that their ancestors
invented here, six generations ago. And how do you account for all the
Blacks who _don't_ use those constructs, going back multiple
generations?
|> |*Everyone* in the U.S., ideally should speak a mutually intelligible
|> |language. English by its majority is the logical choice.
|> |
|> |The question is, should children who speak Black English be taught
|> |under the philosophy, "You speak a variant of English which is not
|> |standard, and the majority of this country understands Standard
|> |English, therefore for maximum chance of success, you should know
|> |how to speak Standard English", or should they be taught "your
version
|> |of English is *BAD*"
|>
|> Arguably, the latter follows from the former, whether explicitly
stated
|> or not. Certainly, there is nothing inherently good about it.
|
|Are you so sure?
Yes. I said it, didn't I? Are you so sure of the opposite?
|> BUT, you _must_ distinguish between the dialect being a bad thing to
|> rely upon and the person using it not being a bad person just because
|> they grew up with it.
|
|The dialect is not a bad thing, it is a thing which keeps one
|from being able to be hired for mainstream jobs.
And that's a good thing?
|Hell, I think that social workers who deal primarily with Black
|English speakers should learn Black English.
And social workers who deal primarily with Isei should probably learn
Japanese. What has that got to do with how we educate people in our
schools?
|> |> Look at the lunacy some of the deaf extremists are perpetuating
with
|> |> respect to chochlear implants. Imagine people claiming you are
|> |> "destroying their culture" by teaching standard English to
"Ebonics"
|> |> speakers. That is every bit as absurd as worrying about the
ecology
|> of
|> |> the Salton Sea -- and every bit as certain to happen.
|> |
|> |Cochlear implants, unfortunately, are another issue altogether.
|> |They do *not* at this time adequately bring most deaf people to
|> |the level of hearing people.
|>
|> No one said they did, but to claim their very existence threatens
"Deaf
|> Culture" with genocide and protest any further research into
improving
|> them is lunacy. Yet people are doing just that.
|
|I think if you knew more about the history of Deaf culture in the U.S.
|you'd understand their viewpoint a little less histrionically than you
|do.
An odd remark from someone who has no idea what I know or don't know
about Deaf culture in the U.S. (Again, educated layperson.)
IMHO, basing a culture on a disability and claiming attempted genocide
by anyone who tries to cure that disability _in people who want it cured
and volunteer for the treatment_ is lunacy.
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CCP, CFI)
http://www.babcom.com/polymath/
http://www.babcom.com/gla-mensa/
Query pgpkeys.mit.edu for PGP public key.
LePheaux
>> I May be wrong here.
>
>"You are."
>
>
>developed some time ago (and some which have died) to understand how
>BAE came around."
<<<>>>
reading in this thread.
<<<>>>
>
>> Cajun is a more true sense of language adaptation. with great deals of
>> French Canadian, and English.
>>>>><<<<
Having worked on the boats, out of Morgan City, and Lockport.
with a Cajun on one Boat.and a coonass on the other.I found that there's a
big Difference, and not to mix the two up.
Calling a coonass a cajun will get things heated up in a real hurry.
Now here's a Bunch of people who don't get upset over trival names,
other then Coonasses being damn proud of just that.
Then there's the occasional Game of who can be the down right rudest.
Listening in on the Banters was quite the treat, for a semi-civilized 19
year old Drywaller protegee pretending to be a Deckhand. Actualy growing up
around boats in Alaska, and having gone through P.C.M.I. gave me the marine
time to be Certified.
Irony that Reagan cut Maritime Bennies that year.
back to the point , there's a Difference between Creole and Cajun,
I'm sure there's Building Blocks of one , the other, or both.
and I did spend the majority of my time on the boats, not a lot of
interaction, other then the Cook's. and what time docked,Groceries
etc...etc...
>"It's a creole approaching language status. It's not even a dialect.
>BAE ('Ebonics') has not been claimed to be a different *language* as
>much as it is a significantly different enough dialect to require
>ESL-like classes for 'native' speakers."
>
<<<>>>
Ok ,I'll go with that,
Now here's a Q. for ya.
I'm thinking there's a difference between the Ebonics spoken Here in
Seattle,
and LA. or would that be like a dialect Difference in the same language ?
I guess the Question I'm asking.
is Ebonics a unified sub Language through out the Country ?
Susan Cohen
pel...@centre.edu wrote:
> In article <37F992DB...@his.com>,
> fla...@hers.com wrote:
> >
> > I can;t think of any. "Cracker" I always thought was for generic white
> > bigots.
> Way I learned it, "cracker" refers to lower-class whites, like
> "white trash" or "redneck." Bigotry is a concept deeply entwined with
> the other two, though.
> I was thinking of "honky," and, probably incorrectly, "goy." If I
> am remembering correctly, "goyim," is a semi-insulting term for generic
> non-Jews,
Sadly, "goy" is a badly misused term - and, even worse, mostly mis-used
by *Jews.* It means, strictly speaking "nation." In the Torah, Jews are
referred to by this word, in the proper context. it has come to mean
"non-Jew," which I guess no one can change *now*, and, worse, it is
*rarely* used in any other context than negative.
> but it was mostly used in Europe, where most folks are (duh)
> white.
It's used here in the States, too. Sigh.
> > Now the only words I can think of to desribe pagans would be the
> > same used to anyone not following the religion of the bigot in
> question.
> Hmmm . . . yes and no. "Heathen," yeah, that just means, "You
> don't believe what I do and I am therefore resolved not to like you. I
> fart in your general direction." But I've heard pagans of all stripes
> refered to as Satanists, which is both inaccurate and insulting to most
> of them.
Oh, that one. I once had a vociferous argument on Usenet to the effect
that the only Satanists who were evil were actually the Xtian-construct
Satanists, who were really just "anti-Xtians," but that there were those
who insisted that they worshipped a totally different type of Satan who
bore no resemblence to the sick baby-killers/goat worshippers (whatever)
most people think of as Satanists. The guy kept telling me I was being
deceived, was "aggressively stupid" - and all because I couldn't remember
the name "Anton LeVey", who came up with the non-Xtian Satan religion.
Sigh.
> I don't think I've heard "Satanists" applied to, fer example,
> the bits of Christianity that the more foaming-at-mouth preachers don't
> like.
Actually, vociferous Xtians sometimes refer to Xtians they don't like as
being deceived by Satan, or actually worshipping Satan instead of Jesus.
Unfortunately, I can't come up with a *specific* episode, but I'm glad to
say that it usually comes when so-called Xtians are being bigoted and
true Xtians protest against it.
> There are a number of ways that one can elaborate on the Satan
> motif to create new and interesting insults. Then there are also the
> more generic, less harmful labels along the lines of "flake," and
> "fruitcake," that also get pinned on pagans to an inordinate degree.
Of course, people who follow many Eastern traditions get this, too.
> 'Course, you can call anyone a fruitcake if you want (myself, I can
> practically taste the waves of nutfulness radiating from our good friend
> the Teletubby Man) but still . . .
> >
> > > I'm not sure if this correlates across the board; I am familiar
> with
> > > only one truly insulting term for black folks. What say you,
> Patrons:
> > > am I just sheltered, or finding false connections?
> >
> > I've heard of *plenty* that I think are reserved only for Black
> people.
> > Please don't make me list them.
> >
> Relax; I wouldn't do that to anyone, even in the interests of
> sociological research.
Whew!
Susan
LePheaux
>> > even an X-Girlfriend. Debbie Grassberg, who called herself a JAP.
>> > <<<><>>>
>>
>> And an FOB Japanese person probably wouldn't recognize "jap"
>> as a derogatory term, but I do.
>
>In the context in which LePheaux and his self-hating ex-girlfriend used it,
>it means "Jewish American Princess." A spoiled little rich girl (no matter
>how old she is) who is at best nominally Jewish, whose whiny materialism
>is, by her visibility, imputed to Jews by the ignorant or the bigoted.
>
>Susan
><<<>>>>
long.