Why is this substandard way of speaking becoming more prevalent?

[Cari 0]

There is a writer named Richard Lederer who has a few books about this topic! "Anguished English: An Anthology of Accidental Assaults on the English Language," and "Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay: Practical Advice for the Grammatically Challenged" are just two of them. They're pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, I think the problem rests more in the laziness of people than in ignorance (though I'm sure that plays a part as well). I've had people dislike me because they thought I was a snob. It hasn't happened often, but on two occasions people have told others that I try to talk above them. I've never tried to do that. I just speak properly and it has pissed off a few people for some reason or another.

[shropshire 0]

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Our human civilization is fucking DOOMED!

Of course, you making the rather large assumption that we're civilised

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[jcd11235 0]

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I am not able to do the long mulitiplication involved in my head. I'm fine with admitting that. But at least I know how to solve the actual problem.

dude, you're complaining about uneducated people, not being able to speak correctly or to find the cheapest kitty litter in the store, but you can't even divide 50 by 35 without using a calculator?!?!

Are you kidding?

1.3, done just now with no calculator.

Without calculator: it's between 1.4 and 1.5. {33 1/3 * 15 = 500, 35 * 15 = 525, 25 < 35} If that's not close enough, it's easy to get a more precise answer. {25/35 = 5/7, 50/35 = 1.4 + (1 - 5/7)*(1.5-1.4)} So 50/35 is exactly 2/7 of the way from exactly 1.4 to exactly 1.5. Very quick and easy in my head, yet very messy on paper.

On paper:
50 / 35 = 1 R15
150 / 35 = 4 R10
100 / 35 = 2 R30
300 / 35 = 8 R20
200 / 35 = 5 R25
250 / 35 = 7 R5
50 / 35 = 1 R15

With a calculator, it's 1.42857142857….

Based on getting the same answer with three different methods, I'm going to say that you're incorrect with your 1.3 answer.

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I'm talking about shopping at 3 a.m., after 8 hours of work, and looking at a box of kitty litter that is 27 lbs. for $9.87, and 35 lbs. for $12.87.

Which gives 27 lbs. for $9.87 compared to 8 lbs. for $3.00, the approximate equivalent to 27 lbs. for $10 compared to 8 lbs. for $3.00. With a common denominator, 81 lbs. for $30 or 80 lbs. for $30, thus the 27 lbs. for $10.00 is cheaper per pound than 35 lbs. for $12.87, but only very slightly so. Since our approximation slightly increased the cost of the first option by close to $0.005 per pound, we don't need to go any further.

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No, I do not make the claim to easily be able to do the math, retain the figures, and make the determination of the better value in my head. Maybe if I put my mind to training it to do these (as I had in high school) I could, but I have the calculator at hand, so why bother, anyway?

I'll be the fist to argue that there is little value in knowing how to work out mathematics problems on paper if one can work them out with a calculator. That does not extend to claiming that it is not important to be able to do easy mathematical problems in one's head. One should not need a calculator or paper, for example, to determine the first derivative of (cos(x - pi/2) + sqrt(17)). OTOH, solving x^2 +x = 1, for x, would probably require most people to use paper & pencil or a calculator, unless they happened to recognize the pattern immediately (in which case, the solutions stand out and appear obvious).

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What I am saying is that I doubt a lot of people still remember--if they ever knew--how to even set up the equation that would help them get the right answer.

That highlights two separate problems.

First, there is the problem of people who never learn maths beyond basic arithmetic/Algebra. IMO, demonstrating a basic understanding of Calculus should be a graduation requirement for every U.S. secondary school student.

Second, there is the problem of knowledge retention. I blame this, in part, on grading methods in the U.S. (and presumably other places). In maths classes, substantial credit is given for knowledge retention until the next exam, which much less credit being given for retention through the end of the course. A more objective metric would be basing the grade 100% on a comprehensive final. How much knowledge is still retained at the end of the semester? If students can't retain knowledge that long, how can we expect them to retain knowledge after they graduate and enter college or the workplace?

While we're on the topic of numbers, do you have that money you owe me? Proposing a bet, losing, and failing to pay off the wager is not a sign of personal integrity, but rather lack thereof.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[Amazon 7]

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The kids don't have an decent role models at the moment, but base their sad pathetic lives on that of C-List celebrities.

Are you having a slight issue with A and AN... not to mention... a wee problem with role model and role models????


Hmm isn't this an interesting deja vu moment.....

[christelsabine 1]

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The kids don't have an decent role models at the moment, but base their sad pathetic lives on that of C-List celebrities.

Are you having a slight issue with A and AN... not to mention... a wee problem with role model and role models????


Hmm isn't this an interesting deja vu moment.....

I think he wanted to say as fllws:

"The kids don't have any decent role models ...."

BTW: It's déjà-vu

Wow man, it's fun to be a f**cking spelling Nazi..

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[shropshire 0]

twoshay [sic]

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Amazon 7]

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I think he wanted to say as fllws:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[nanook 1]

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So what you're saying is that we should not expect anyone who speaks in this way to rise up to become those things? Doesn't that open the door to them complaining that they're being "kept down"? What you pointed out seems to just rationalize an "elitist" system...

I'm not implying that an astronaut is more "Elite" than a Hip-hop artist, I'm saying that formal language is not required for the entertainment field.

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We'll be accused of being complacent about having a hierarchical society and too happy to sit at the top of it.

I'm not going to worry about those who believe this. If they can't grasp this need for a right place and a right time for communication style, they either are dumb or just posturing for some other reason.

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I know it's not new. I'm saying that I think it is becoming MORE PREVALENT. Blame entertainment, movies, cartoons, rap music... it IS showing up more and more in people's speech

When you tell someone the time, do you say "It is three of the clock"? or "three o-clock"? We both are using some contractions in our posts. What came first, "cannot", or "can't"?

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Who's going to write legal briefs, new laws, treaties...?

I've read many recent and 200 year old books and notice huge differences in the writing. But, I've read old Supreme Court rulings from different times and see very near non-existent change in the language. I'm not going to worry about illiterate jurispredence types.

I just believe that this worry is superficial at best

_____________________________

"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that you can never know if they are genuine" - Abraham Lincoln

[christelsabine 1]

I know, I know.

As fllws, that's what I always used as an abbreviation for "as follows". Do you remember these old days, when telex machines were used? The yellow paper strips, in which little holes were hacked while typing? These were the days when my former old boss instructed us how to "spare money" by using abbreviations to shorten the text, such as fllws:

we are: v r
we have: v hv
you are: u r
you have: u hv
for your information: fyi
with re to: wr2
with re to our telepone conversation: wr2 our telecon
regards: rgds
thank you in advance: thks in adv
....
and so on..

As: The shorter the telex strip, the cheaper were transmittal cost when sending the telex. Telex machines in my old company were used until they fell apart

and: as fllws. It's in my head.

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[skydyvr 0]

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Babelfish translation: STUPID NIGGERS!!

If there weren't so many dumbshit crackers talking the same way these days, you might have a point.

. . =(_8^(1)

[Amazon 7]

That is an excellent display of squirming

[christelsabine 1]

No. It's just like that. And always wl b. 4 sure.

No, seriously: You do not really believe I wrote that long mssg to "sneak out of a typo"?? I'am an alien, right? So, I 'm entitled to make typing errors in English language. Even I "corrected" a French typo.

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[Amazon 7]

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No, seriously: You do not really believe I wrote that long mssg to "sneak out of a typo"?? I'am an alien, right? So, I 'm entitled to make typing errors in English language. Even I "corrected" a French typo.

Actually I wish NUMEROUS posters here in Speakers Corner... had your ability to type English .

[misaltas 0]

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I have been hearing more and more people talking in this way:

- "Why he did dat?"
- "What you said?"
- "My car run good!"
- "Why it's like dat?"

They are asking questions, in most cases, but not phrasing them as questions. They add the interrogative inflection, yes, but the syntax is what one would use when making a statement.

At work, in an office environment, a woman left her wedding/engagement rings in the washroom and later, the hunt was on for them.

I heard the woman who found them telling another woman that she had done so:

"Hey, yo, I found that lady ring."

NO possessives.
NO plurals.

What is happening to this language?! To this culture?!

It's morphing, like languages have done throughout history. Probably quicker now that media of communication are faster and have a wider reach.

English has so many little ridiculous things about it that are so much simpler in some other languages. And now that it's turning into the lingua franca of business, technology, science, etc., and the second language of much of the world, it's good to see some of the changes.

I'm glad that English is such an absorbent and informally adoptive language without the official "academies" of dictatorial control like some others.

- "Why he did dat?"
Simpler than "Why did he do that?" The voiced "th" sound is more difficult for some than the voiced "d" sound. Many languages through time have gone through consonant shifts more extensive than that.

- "What you said?"
As opposed to the less simple "What did you say?" In some languages it would be literally "What said you?" Much simpler.

- "My car run good!"
In the present tense, the third person singular is the mutant exception and mostly needs an 's' at the end of the infinitive form. All other forms don't, and "run" is correct. It would be easier and better if English ends up dropping that mutation.

- "Why it's like dat?"
In a statement, the subject comes before the verb, but in a question like this it's reversed. Why? Would be easier if it was the same.

Almost anytime I read an article or comments about people who use the language "incorrectly", the reasons and examples are more about elitism than they are about practicality.

Language should be more about best communicating ideas given a medium and an audience than it should be about holding onto arbitrary or archaic bits of right way vs wrong way.

Ohne Liebe sind wir nichts

[birdlike 0]

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Our human civilization is fucking DOOMED!

Of course, you making the rather large assumption that we're civilised

Well, you're not -- as long as you continue spelling it that way!

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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The kids don't have an decent role models at the moment, but base their sad pathetic lives on that of C-List celebrities.

Are you having a slight issue with A and AN... not to mention... a wee problem with role model and role models????


Hmm isn't this an interesting deja vu moment.....

But I get called the "grammar Nazi"...

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[Amazon 7]

Hey... Shrop and I were talking..its a private joke.

now run along and proofread something.

[birdlike 0]

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I am not able to do the long mulitiplication involved in my head. I'm fine with admitting that. But at least I know how to solve the actual problem.

dude, you're complaining about uneducated people, not being able to speak correctly or to find the cheapest kitty litter in the store, but you can't even divide 50 by 35 without using a calculator?!?!

Are you kidding?

1.3, done just now with no calculator.

Without calculator: it's between 1.4 and 1.5. {33 1/3 * 15 = 500, 35 * 15 = 525, 25

You're right, I screwed it up. While doing it in my head I mistakenly took the remainder (15) and put it over the 50 rather than the 35 and simplified that. D'oh!

It looks like you have a lot more mathematical expertise (and recent experience) than I have. Kudos to you. No, I never took calculus, although based on my grades and the New York State Regents Exam, I excelled in mathematics in high school Sequential Math courses I, II and III. (98%, 100%, 98% respectively.)

Would I like to know Calculus? Yes. But when I was a senior, I had math as my last (8th) period class, and I had serious senior burnout (as in, ready to be out of there) so I did not focus on the course, eventually dropping from Calculus to "Math 12 (Pre-calculus) and didn't even do any work in that one, so I dropped math period (since my requirements had already been met).

I'd love to be able to audit high school regents-level physics and math classes at this point, just to re-learn what I once knew.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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I think he wanted to say as fllws:

"The kids don't have any decent role models ...."

BTW: It's déjà-vu

Wow man, it's fun to be a f**cking spelling Nazi..

And just imagine the fun if you didn't limit it to spelling!

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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I'll be the fist to argue that there is little value in knowing how to work out mathematics problems on paper if one can work them out with a calculator.

Behold, ignorant masses, and tremble!! I am The Fist To Argue!!

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Second, there is the problem of knowledge retention. I blame this, in part, on grading methods in the U.S. (and presumably other places). In maths classes, substantial credit is given for knowledge retention until the next exam, which much less credit being given for retention through the end of the course. A more objective metric would be basing the grade 100% on a comprehensive final.

You must mean like the New York State Regents Exam. However, your course grade is not based 100% on it, that's true. But if you do well on it, haven't you demonstrated that you retained the knowledge at least until the end of the course, even if your grade was not based 100% on your score?

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[birdlike 0]

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I think he wanted to say as fllws:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Hey hey hey -- ease up!
It's not bad enough they pay what they pay for gasoline... Haven't you heard about the E.U.'s "Vowel Tax"?! Everyone has to conserve, now.

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire

[BikerBabe 0]

See? Misaltas has called people who care to speak and write properly "elitists".

Billvon really explained this well in another thread with a hyperbolic remark, but still, right on the money.

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Exactly. College is for arrogant pansy-ass elitists who think that just because they understand calculus, protein synthesis and Maxwell's Equations they're smarter than people who watch the Redskins! Next thing you know, those elitists will be claiming that the ability to speak and write English means something. I mean, as long as you can communicate in grunts and put an X on a line instead of a signature, you're as smart as anyone - and don't let them tell you anything different!

If being educated and able to write and speak correctly makes me elitist, then I'll say i'm proud to be a snob.

This argument has NOTHING to do with race and everything to do with the current anti-education attitude that prevails in this country today.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[kallend 2,113]

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See? Misaltas has called people who care to speak and write properly "elitists".

Billvon really explained this well in another thread with a hyperbolic remark, but still, right on the money.

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Exactly. College is for arrogant pansy-ass elitists who think that just because they understand calculus, protein synthesis and Maxwell's Equations they're smarter than people who watch the Redskins! Next thing you know, those elitists will be claiming that the ability to speak and write English means something. I mean, as long as you can communicate in grunts and put an X on a line instead of a signature, you're as smart as anyone - and don't let them tell you anything different!

If being educated and able to write and speak correctly makes me elitist, then I'll say i'm proud to be a snob.

This argument has NOTHING to do with race and everything to do with the current anti-education attitude that prevails in this country today.

The demand for college education has never been higher.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[BikerBabe 0]

And yet, educated people still get called elitists for desiring to uphold standards.

I was merely pointing out misaltas' post as an example. Not to mention he played right into my prediction on the first page of this thread.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

[birdlike 0]

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I'm not implying that an astronaut is more "Elite" than a Hip-hop artist...

That's ok, I'll say that an astronaut is more "elite" than a hip-hop artist.

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We'll be accused of being complacent about having a hierarchical society and too happy to sit at the top of it.

I'm not going to worry about those who believe this. If they can't grasp this need for a right place and a right time for communication style, they either are dumb or just posturing for some other reason.

What I'm saying is that I can't find a good reason to allow for the bad communication skills. Let the kids develop them, and they are not going to just switch to the good ones when they're obligatory -- they won't KNOW how to use the good skills! If they knew them, why don't they use them? Because their friends are impressed with their "rebelliousness"? "Oooh, look at how I refuse to use the grammar provided for me by 'Tha Man'!"

And if it's just laziness that causes them to "slouch" in their language use, that itself is a different problem.

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When you tell someone the time, do you say "It is three of the clock"? or "three o-clock"? We both are using some contractions in our posts. What came first, "cannot", or "can't"?

I can't see that being the equivalent of the stuff we're talking about. "Can't" and "don't" and such are "legitimate" contractions. Leaving off the S in a plural that requires it simply leaves the singular, which is INCORRECT in context.

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I've read many recent and 200 year old books and notice huge differences in the writing. But, I've read old Supreme Court rulings from different times and see very near non-existent change in the language. I'm not going to worry about illiterate jurispredence types.

No, but we'll have social unrest eventually (possibly) because of misplaced blame coming from the unread masses who want to claim the right to lead even though they are unread, and unskilled in the things they would need to know in order to lead well.

My point there is that those who can't write those legal opinions will always have an excuse to say that the others are "elitist" and are "keeping them down."

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I just believe that this worry is superficial at best

It might very well be, but I still find the sagging standards troubling. And if I myself were to be shown where I was deficient if society started to expect more, I would be glad for the opportunity to improve myself, rather than saying, "Yo, why you be disrespectin' my talkin'? Who you think YOU be?!"

There's a big difference between people who get offended when someone shows them the correct way, and someone who takes constructive criticism (or who at least makes an effort to be able to do so).

Spirits fly on dangerous missions
Imaginations on fire