The Central Pro/Pre/Per Scriptivisor

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

--- vze422fs at verizon.net wrote:
> 
> The English language is like rock'n'roll: it absorbs
> everything, incorporates it, modifies itself to the
local idiom, and uses it to the best
> advantage in the circumstances.

Roll over Beethoven. Just like with Rock & Roll,
negative attitudes are directed toward the "blackness"
of Black English; the attitudes and the language
itself are the consequences of the historical
operations of racism in the You Knighted Hates. 

What the Irish kids need to understand is that a
fundamental rule for using a language is knowledge of
that language's cultural codes. Elaine is not really
curious about my natural dialect. If she were she
would ask the kinds of questions that people do when
they want to learn the dialect and the cultural codes.
To speak is to assume a culture. It is not enough just
to know the syntax of a language, to know how to
promounce its sounds, to know its words. You need to
know the rules of speaking the language in the social
and cultural context that are an inextricable
dimensions of any language. When you know what you can
say to whom and under what conditions, you've taken a
giant step. 


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