We all have them, so what are yours? I'm not talking about when someone coughs behind you in line at the supermarket or anything like that. I'm talking about the internet. What bothers you guys the most about the way people act/react when you're online?
I've only got a few things, but here's my list:
-People who respond to an article/post/blog with a spelling or grammatical correction and nothing else, thereby contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion. It happens all the time on places like IGN and Cracked, or pretty much anywhere that allows for user discussion.
-Advertisements on something I'm paying to watch. Seriously, if I'm paying you money, why do I need to watch a commercial about the new Ford F-150 and how awesome you say it is?
Comparing persons or actions to rape and or nazi's. It desensitizes the horror of both and shows a general lack of maturity.
User names with XXX or various 1337 spellings of assassin or sniper.
Farmville.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
Nerd rant: (directed at facebook friends i guess, though some people in real life too)
I don't want to see some random meme you've just discovered for the first time. Why don't you think of an original joke or have something to say that is an actual contribution! Stop leaning on unoriginal caricatures that can be vaguely attributed to our situation. At this point I'm even sick of the clever ones!
[ February 16, 2012, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: LargeTuna ]
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Email forwards. Frankly the only thing email should be used for any more is order confirmations and business.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Using an apostrophe to pluralize 'Nazi', while dropping the capital letter. It's almost as bad as the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
People who complain about "spelling or grammatical correction" without making any spelling or grammatical errors, thus denying everyone else the chance to ironically correct their post.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Email forwards. Frankly the only thing email should be used for any more is order confirmations and business.
These are the only things I use it for. I have transitioned all other correspondence to Facebook or texting. I treat anti-networking Luddites like I treated people who didn't "do" email. I'm not gonna post you a letter for 48 cents because you don't dane to touch a keyboard or use a smartphone. And I'm not gonna deal with cross-talk between 15 people I don't need to talk to junking up my email folder.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: ...you don't dane to touch a keyboard or use a smartphone.
It's deign.
Thank you.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Autocorrect, sadly.
But actually I was complaining that so few people act Danish.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dobbie: People who complain about "spelling or grammatical correction" without making any spelling or grammatical errors, thus denying everyone else the chance to ironically correct their post.
Lol, I knew someone was going to try it. Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Stephan: Email forwards. Frankly the only thing email should be used for any more is order confirmations and business.
These are the only things I use it for. I have transitioned all other correspondence to Facebook or texting. I treat anti-networking Luddites like I treated people who didn't "do" email. I'm not gonna post you a letter for 48 cents because you don't dane to touch a keyboard or use a smartphone. And I'm not gonna deal with cross-talk between 15 people I don't need to talk to junking up my email folder.
My internet pet peeve is whenever I start feeling like I need a continuous feed of new information and entertainment. If I feel like I'm getting to that point I'll usually take a hiatus.
I like the asynchronous nature of email. It fits into my communication comfort zone. It can be as personal as a letter or strictly business, but it doesn't demand an immediate response.
I treat people who only want texts fairly uniformly--if I need to talk to them, I'll call them. Gives them a chance to rest their fingers.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Jeff, spelling it "Lol" is basically never acceptable unless you're saying it's just a word now. In which case I think the accepted spelling would be "lawl" (or "Lawl" if it begins a sentence, as yours did). Spelled "lol" it should probably be appropriately capitalized as an acronym, or left all lower-case to stay true to its non-capitalized net-slang roots. You've raped my eyes with your misuse of the acronym. I'm so upset that I'll be posting a letter to Orincoro about it later, believe me.
I'm actually not sure what my own peeves would be.
I mean, most of these are pretty good, but they don't really bother me. Pedantic corrections are just sort of amusing, to me. I roll my eyes at Nazi references, generally, but they don't make me flip out and they're hardly exclusive to the internet anyway.
I'm a little disdainful of excessive "net speak" type stuff (especially 1337) but a good friend of mine works as a coder and in his spare time types thousands of words a day. He suffers from pretty bad repetitive stress, and often uses lots of abbreviations when discussing stuff that is not business related. Sure, it's a little odd to see someone discussing philosophy with abbreviations like "u" and "ppl" but I've gotten used to it.
I absolutely use email for stuff other than business and order confirmations, too, but I'm on several email lists and my parents occasionally manage to email, so that's the main reason. For individual communication with people capable of responding, I agree with Orincoro that texting is more efficient.
I think my biggest internet pet peeve is people that get really bent out of shape over the internet. It seems like, because of the layer of removal from the people they interact with, many folks are more liable to fly off the handle for relatively minor "insults" in ways I doubt they do in real life. It's annoying, and seems so unnecessary, since (unlike in real life!) we always have the option of walking away with zero repercussions and no way for the offending person to follow us. Seems like people would be *calmer* and *more civil*, but it rarely works out that way.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Jeff, spelling it "Lol" is basically never acceptable unless you're saying it's just a word now. In which case I think the accepted spelling would be "lawl" (or "Lawl" if it begins a sentence, as yours did). Spelled "lol" it should probably be appropriately capitalized as an acronym, or left all lower-case to stay true to its non-capitalized net-slang roots. You've raped my eyes with your misuse of the acronym. I'm so upset that I'll be posting a letter to Orincoro about it later, believe me.
Lol
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Subtly poking fun at my trans-Atlantic English as well.
As someone with a hybridized vocabulary and accent, one of my pet peeves is people (chiefly Brits) "correcting" my perfectly acceptable grammatical or lexical choices.
For instance, the government "is" not "are," or "We've gotten a lot of snow," not "we've had a lot of snow."
Gotten freaking works as a past participle in that sentence where got wouldn't, dammit!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: I like the asynchronous nature of email. It fits into my communication comfort zone. It can be as personal as a letter or strictly business, but it doesn't demand an immediate response.
I treat people who only want texts fairly uniformly--if I need to talk to them, I'll call them. Gives them a chance to rest their fingers.
Well said, and I agree entirely.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
I think my biggest internet pet peeve is people that get really bent out of shape over the internet. It seems like, because of the layer of removal from the people they interact with, many folks are more liable to fly off the handle for relatively minor "insults" in ways I doubt they do in real life. It's annoying, and seems so unnecessary, since (unlike in real life!) we always have the option of walking away with zero repercussions and no way for the offending person to follow us. Seems like people would be *calmer* and *more civil*, but it rarely works out that way.
Which is more likely to bark, the dog behind the fence, or the dog on the street?
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
I think my biggest internet pet peeve is people that get really bent out of shape over the internet. It seems like, because of the layer of removal from the people they interact with, many folks are more liable to fly off the handle for relatively minor "insults" in ways I doubt they do in real life. It's annoying, and seems so unnecessary, since (unlike in real life!) we always have the option of walking away with zero repercussions and no way for the offending person to follow us. Seems like people would be *calmer* and *more civil*, but it rarely works out that way.
Which is more likely to bark, the dog behind the fence, or the dog on the street?
Which one is more likely to chase you? Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
quote: As someone with a hybridized vocabulary and accent, one of my pet peeves is people (chiefly Brits) "correcting" my perfectly acceptable grammatical or lexical choices.
Since most British people barely speak in a textbook grammatical fashion anyway, correcting other native speakers seems a bizarre pastime.
But then, I've been told by Americans that no-one says 'shan't' and that 'had/have got' is incorrect. So horses for courses.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think the Internet meme thing has gotten a little bit excessively silly.
I'm annoyed that the relatively subtle concept of a meme is now obscured by the definition "slightly amusing thing that people keep repeating on the Internet for slight amusement."
Also, either I've lost my sense of humor or most of the jokes people try to make with these things aren't actually funny.
There's a thing I'm seeing a lot of right now - "BYU memes" (I have a lot of LDS and Utah facebook friends). What this appears to consist of is taking stuff from memebase and superimposing some BYU-related cultural reference.
The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee:
quote: As someone with a hybridized vocabulary and accent, one of my pet peeves is people (chiefly Brits) "correcting" my perfectly acceptable grammatical or lexical choices.
Since most British people barely speak in a textbook grammatical fashion anyway, correcting other native speakers seems a bizarre pastime.
But then, I've been told by Americans that no-one says 'shan't' and that 'had/have got' is incorrect. So horses for courses.
I take it those Americans haven't got a lovely bunch of coconuts, then. Must be sad, being them.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
I think my biggest internet pet peeve is people that get really bent out of shape over the internet. It seems like, because of the layer of removal from the people they interact with, many folks are more liable to fly off the handle for relatively minor "insults" in ways I doubt they do in real life. It's annoying, and seems so unnecessary, since (unlike in real life!) we always have the option of walking away with zero repercussions and no way for the offending person to follow us. Seems like people would be *calmer* and *more civil*, but it rarely works out that way.
Which is more likely to bark, the dog behind the fence, or the dog on the street?
Which one is more likely to chase you?
Actually, most dogs don't chase you if you don't run.
I think you've got a great point, Orincoro. Also reminds me of an old Penny Arcade comic about the cloak of anonymity the internet provides turning regular decent people into ****wads.
Still, humans aren't dogs. We have the capacity to make decisions about our actions in a way that dogs can't, so it's sad that so few people choose to act in a reasonable way when someone on the internet says something that offends them.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I think the Internet meme thing has gotten a little bit excessively silly.
I'm annoyed that the relatively subtle concept of a meme is now obscured by the definition "slightly amusing thing that people keep repeating on the Internet for slight amusement."
Also, either I've lost my sense of humor or most of the jokes people try to make with these things aren't actually funny.
There's a thing I'm seeing a lot of right now - "BYU memes" (I have a lot of LDS and Utah facebook friends). What this appears to consist of is taking stuff from memebase and superimposing some BYU-related cultural reference.
The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
Yeah, I've seen plenty that make me chuckle, but for the most part they are more of a "get out of my head" sort of non-joke, where the "humor" is just relying on the fact that it will semi-accurately reflect the lives of X niche of viewers who will feel a visceral connection and mistake that for an actual joke.
Except for man-babies and birds-with-arms. Those two, when the photoshops are done sufficiently well, are legitimately funny and/or horrifying.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
Jeff: Yeah, I had a laugh at a couple libertarian versions of those (Republicans think they're stoners, Democrats think they're the Monopoly businessman, they think they're Mal Reynolds and/or the Founding Fathers, and what they really do is sit at a computer and face-palm all day).
And one about coding that subverted the normal meme (all the entries were just the same picture of a guy coding, except what they think they do, which was Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam, and what they really do, which was a picture of the guy making the meme I was reading).
I laughed at those, but I'm pretty sure that for the most part I just laughed because I "got" them, and so they appealed to me.
Posted by Olivet 2.0 (Member # 12719) on :
As a side note "gotten" was once a past participle of the verb "to get" on both sides of the Atlantic, but now only Americans use it. It's handy, though.
On a personal pet peeve note, I'm going to throw my vote in for email forwards.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
Yes, this illustrates the problem. No, your non-band "frineds" do not think you make out all the time. And the last three panels are barely discernable from each other. So what's the joke?
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
Yes, this illustrates the problem. No, your non-band "frineds" do not think you make out all the time. And the last three panels are barely discernable from each other. So what's the joke?
Found this. Somebody made one about how redundant this joke has become.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Someone should do one about jumping the shark.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Jeff that was pretty hilarious.
Because I'm fed up with that meme, so it has a visceral connec— gah I give up!
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: spellings of assassin or sniper.
Woah woah woah lets not be hasty.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Jeff that was pretty hilarious.
Because I'm fed up with that meme, so it has a visceral connec— gah I give up!
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: spellings of assassin or sniper.
Woah woah woah lets not be hasty.
He wasn't.
In fact, I'd say his pace was very measured. Maybe even ponderous.
I'd go so far as to say 1337 spellings of anything are pretty stupid.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
I think that's every Halestorm Entertainment comedy in a nutshell.
Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :
I have only a few internet pet peeves, but one of my greatest is people assuming that everyone has Facebook and linking to content that is inaccessible to those of us without it.
Also, rage comics. Holy crap, I am sick of those.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carrie: one of my greatest is people assuming that everyone has Facebook and linking to content that is inaccessible to those of us without it.
YES!
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: spellings of assassin or sniper.
Woah woah woah lets not be hasty.
He wasn't.
In fact, I'd say his pace was very measured. Maybe even ponderous.
I'd go so far as to say 1337 spellings of anything are pretty stupid.
I understand j00.
Posted by adenam (Member # 11902) on :
When I finally get used to a website's new look and can navigate around it easily and then changes again making me start the learning process all over again.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:Originally posted by Carrie: one of my greatest is people assuming that everyone has Facebook and linking to content that is inaccessible to those of us without it.
YES!
Well, okay, but it is a totally free service that you don't actually have to put personal information into if you don't want to. So, if that's where the content someone finds interesting is, it doesn't seem that unreasonable for them to link to it.
But if you ask for an alternate link and they have one and they give you crap instead just to be a butt then I can see your point.
Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
quote:Originally posted by Carrie: Also, rage comics. Holy crap, I am sick of those.
Yeah, every time I see one, I'm like FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Dan, I'm not going to debate the evilness of FB with you. That wasn't my point, and I doubt it was Carrie's.
When I link to a story on a subscription site, I include a warning, whether it's a free subscription or a pay one. (Except if I do so accidentally thinking it's public, and then I would add the note once I found out.) Most people using FB links don't do so.
Also, frequently it's not really FB content at all, it's external content they saw on FB. It's not very difficult to use the external link instead of the FB one, but many FB users don't bother. Even for FB-specific content, in some cases it's possible to make a link accessible to non-FB folks (my SIL does this with pictures of my nieces and sends me links).
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
Yes, this illustrates the problem. No, your non-band "frineds" do not think you make out all the time. And the last three panels are barely discernable from each other. So what's the joke?
Well, to someone in a marching band, the bottom left panel is certainly discernible from the bottom center and bottom right. But most examples of this meme or only amusing (and slightly) to those who are targeted. Hence why we are annoyed when dozens pop up on our social networking feed that have nothing to do with our daily lives.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I think the Internet meme thing has gotten a little bit excessively silly.
I'm annoyed that the relatively subtle concept of a meme is now obscured by the definition "slightly amusing thing that people keep repeating on the Internet for slight amusement."
Also, either I've lost my sense of humor or most of the jokes people try to make with these things aren't actually funny.
There's a thing I'm seeing a lot of right now - "BYU memes" (I have a lot of LDS and Utah facebook friends). What this appears to consist of is taking stuff from memebase and superimposing some BYU-related cultural reference.
The problem is that they aren't funny. Here is an example. There is no joke. Free food at Family Home Evening - yes, that sounds like BYU. It is not funny.
BYU alumni do have a tradition of not being funny.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Dan, I'm not going to debate the evilness of FB with you. That wasn't my point, and I doubt it was Carrie's.
When I link to a story on a subscription site, I include a warning, whether it's a free subscription or a pay one. (Except if I do so accidentally thinking it's public, and then I would add the note once I found out.) Most people using FB links don't do so.
Yeah, I see what you mean. That makes sense.
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Also, frequently it's not really FB content at all, it's external content they saw on FB. It's not very difficult to use the external link instead of the FB one, but many FB users don't bother. Even for FB-specific content, in some cases it's possible to make a link accessible to non-FB folks (my SIL does this with pictures of my nieces and sends me links).
Right, this could also be annoying.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I CAN'T STAND WHEN PPL RITE STUF ALL IN CAPS W ABUCNH OF WEIRD ABR. AN DSPELLING ERORS AND STUFF, LIKE ALOTT!
Also, "Lol" is hard on the eyes, I prefer "LoL".
And one last thing: I strongly dislike when people don't capitalize the first letter of a sentence. **coughSamprimarycough**
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Actually, regarding linking to FB, it's very easy to avoid it if the poster knows what they're doing. Well, as far as pictures go, anyway. All you really have to do is directly copy the URL of the picture and then just post that. Unfortunately, most people post the link to the page containing the picture, and that's where the problem comes in.
This alternate method is actually a back-door for non-members and non-friends to access your pictures, and it has been brought up by many people and never resolved or (as far as I'm aware) even addressed.
For examples of what I'm talking about, the three links in the first post are all from facebook.
Posted by Ace of Spades (Member # 2256) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Actually, most dogs don't chase you if you don't run.
...because they are too busy eating you.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:Originally posted by Speed:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Actually, most dogs don't chase you if you don't run.
...because they are too busy eating you.
It would be sort of pointless to chase you if you weren't running, yes. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee:
quote: As someone with a hybridized vocabulary and accent, one of my pet peeves is people (chiefly Brits) "correcting" my perfectly acceptable grammatical or lexical choices.
Since most British people barely speak in a textbook grammatical fashion anyway, correcting other native speakers seems a bizarre pastime.
But then, I've been told by Americans that no-one says 'shan't' and that 'had/have got' is incorrect. So horses for courses.
I used to have people casually tell me that saying something like "pickles" was wrong, because "we invented the language," during the time that I lived in England. other times, I was flatly told that I didn't speak a language at all but rather "slang." what response is there to that kind of insult? It goes rather beyond silly naive ignorance.
Thing about the English: they're just as likely to be mistaken as anyone else, but dammit, they're sure as anything that theyre right about everything.
It was an experience I had several times in and around my college (a dormitory):
Me: Hi, I'm so and so, nice to meet you.
Girl: I'm Katie
Me: Katie, nice name.
Katie: (sarcastically): Not so nice of you say it like that: "Kay-DEEE"
Me: Is there something wrong?
Katie: no, aside from the fact that you can't speak English.
Me: (leaving) it was nice to meet you! maybe one day you'll make a friend.
I don't blame the English in general for this behavior, but I do think it is something you wouldn't hear an educated American saying. I was never deeply hurt by these sorts of exchanges, but I did gain a better sense of what "class" and all that was really about.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee:
quote: As someone with a hybridized vocabulary and accent, one of my pet peeves is people (chiefly Brits) "correcting" my perfectly acceptable grammatical or lexical choices.
Since most British people barely speak in a textbook grammatical fashion anyway, correcting other native speakers seems a bizarre pastime.
But then, I've been told by Americans that no-one says 'shan't' and that 'had/have got' is incorrect. So horses for courses.
I used to have people casually tell me that saying something like "pickles" was wrong, because "we invented the language," during the time that I lived in England. other times, I was flatly told that I didn't speak a language at all but rather "slang." what response is there to that kind of insult? It goes rather beyond silly naive ignorance.
Thing about the English: they're just as likely to be mistaken as anyone else, but dammit, they're sure as anything that theyre right about everything.
It was an experience I had several times in and around my college (a dormitory):
Me: Hi, I'm so and so, nice to meet you.
Girl: I'm Katie
Me: Katie, nice name.
Katie: (sarcastically): Not so nice of you say it like that: "Kay-DEEE"
Me: Is there something wrong?
Katie: no, aside from the fact that you can't speak English.
Me: (leaving) it was nice to meet you! maybe one day you'll make a friend.
I don't blame the English in general for this behavior, but I do think it is something you wouldn't hear an educated American saying. I was never deeply hurt by these sorts of exchanges, but I did gain a better sense of what "class" and all that was really about.
I can understand where you are coming from, but there are people out there who speak English so badly that it sounds like somebody ran a lawnmower over their face. This language has since been called Ebonics, and it is almost an entirely different language from the average American or British English dialects.
But from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like you speak that way. It just sounds like you probably have a slight accent, which can't be helped. After all, Australians have very thick accents and we accept it as just being the way they are because they don't "break" the language or anything, and we can still understand them. If someone spazzes out over the way you say a single letter, maybe they have other issues going on. When you start confusing words, mixing up letters (i.e. "Aks" instead of "Ask"), or you never learned how to properly form a grammatically correct sentence("Dat phat kid don't know nuthin bout dis, mah momma ain't raise no fool!"), then it's both your own fault as well as the education system's.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I speak essentially American network standard English, with a bit of southern English that crops up here and there.
The girl who gets up in arms about a t or a d´ (soft d) sound in the middle of a word is simply full of herself. And the concept that you can take some kind of ownership or stewardship over a language is laughable. In the case of English, it transcends merely laughable, and is in fact downright idiotic.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots:
quote:Originally posted by Speed:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Actually, most dogs don't chase you if you don't run.
...because they are too busy eating you.
It would be sort of pointless to chase you if you weren't running, yes.
I can't tell if this is semi-serious or not, but most of the time, if a dog starts chasing you and you simply face it and assume a dominant posture, the dog will not know what to do when it reaches you, and will lose interest.
It helps to have an umbrella, but that's not strictly necessary.
(Obviously severely disturbed/rabid dogs may be exceptions to this as well)
Posted by Liz B (Member # 8238) on :
quote:I can understand where you are coming from, but there are people out there who speak English so badly that it sounds like somebody ran a lawnmower over their face. This language has since been called Ebonics, and it is almost an entirely different language from the average American or British English dialects.
But from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like you speak that way. It just sounds like you probably have a slight accent, which can't be helped. After all, Australians have very thick accents and we accept it as just being the way they are because they don't "break" the language or anything, and we can still understand them. If someone spazzes out over the way you say a single letter, maybe they have other issues going on. When you start confusing words, mixing up letters (i.e. "Aks" instead of "Ask"), or you never learned how to properly form a grammatically correct sentence("Dat phat kid don't know nuthin bout dis, mah momma ain't raise no fool!"), then it's both your own fault as well as the education system's.
Yes, because white people's accents and dialects are acceptable. Those belonging to people of color are not.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
I'd be willing to bet Jeff would be pretty frustrated with lower-class British "chav" accents, too, and that's an accent largely associated with white people (not to mention the fact that plenty of white people speak with an "urban" or "ebonic" accent).
I'm used to "urban" accents because of where I live and the people I've worked with, so they don't bother me. But to pretend that they're no worse grammatically than an Australian accent is making blatantly patronizing excuses.
But, no, you're right, it's probably just his White Male Privilege showing.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
quote:After all, Australians have very thick accents
Oy! What are you on about cobbler? Strewth, I don't have a thick accent.
quote:and we accept it as just being the way they are
Well, that's mighty kind of you, young man.*
*If you couldn't tell, that was said in a Blanche-esque drawl. I aim for confusion in my accents.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: I'm used to "urban" accents because of where I live and the people I've worked with, so they don't bother me. But to pretend that they're no worse grammatically than an Australian accent is making blatantly patronizing excuses.
You clearly haven't been hanging out in my neighborhood. Trust me, the Australian accent comes in all shapes and sizes.
To nit pick though, it's not the accent that causes the grammatical issues. I mean, there may be a strong correlations between certain accents and misuse of grammar, but it's possible to be ungrammatical (and indeed grammatical) in any accent.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Liz B:
quote:I can understand where you are coming from, but there are people out there who speak English so badly that it sounds like somebody ran a lawnmower over their face. This language has since been called Ebonics, and it is almost an entirely different language from the average American or British English dialects.
But from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like you speak that way. It just sounds like you probably have a slight accent, which can't be helped. After all, Australians have very thick accents and we accept it as just being the way they are because they don't "break" the language or anything, and we can still understand them. If someone spazzes out over the way you say a single letter, maybe they have other issues going on. When you start confusing words, mixing up letters (i.e. "Aks" instead of "Ask"), or you never learned how to properly form a grammatically correct sentence("Dat phat kid don't know nuthin bout dis, mah momma ain't raise no fool!"), then it's both your own fault as well as the education system's.
Yes, because white people's accents and dialects are acceptable. Those belonging to people of color are not.
When did I ever say this was something that was restricted to "people of color"? Oh, right, you assumed it yourself.
This type of language is used by all races throughout the United States. It is not something that is restricted to a single race. But thank you for assuming that I was targeting an entire race by my remarks about the laziness of the "individual" and the "education system". You really showed me!
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by imogen:
quote:After all, Australians have very thick accents
Oy! What are you on about cobbler? Strewth, I don't have a thick accent.
quote:and we accept it as just being the way they are
Well, that's mighty kind of you, young man.*
*If you couldn't tell, that was said in a Blanche-esque drawl. I aim for confusion in my accents.
To clarify, an accent is different from a dialect. When I was referring to the Australian "accent", I was not talking about all of its dialects. Dialects can have words that are unique to themselves and variant grammatical structures; Accents are variations in the way a language is spoken (the sounds of how a person says the words, rather than how they arrange the sentence and their usage of the specific words).
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots:
quote:Originally posted by Speed:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Actually, most dogs don't chase you if you don't run.
...because they are too busy eating you.
It would be sort of pointless to chase you if you weren't running, yes.
I can't tell if this is semi-serious or not, but most of the time, if a dog starts chasing you and you simply face it and assume a dominant posture, the dog will not know what to do when it reaches you, and will lose interest.
It helps to have an umbrella, but that's not strictly necessary.
(Obviously severely disturbed/rabid dogs may be exceptions to this as well)
I wasn't being too serious.
It would be very hard to turn around and assume a dominant posture when a large enough dog is chasing you. I'm sure most people in that situation aren't thinking clearly enough to do that. And you're essentially placing your life and/or limbs on the line to do a counterintuitive action that is for many people based on mere hearsay about how to deal with dogs.
Yet I agree, running from a dog is probably not the best thing to do (unless you can get to safety long before the dog can catch up to you).
Posted by Liz B (Member # 8238) on :
Jeff:
quote: I can understand where you are coming from, but there are people out there who speak English so badly that it sounds like somebody ran a lawnmower over their face. This language has since been called Ebonics, and it is almost an entirely different language from the average American or British English dialects.
Wikipedia:
quote: Ebonics (from the words ebony and phonics) is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language of all people descended from enslaved Black Africans, particularly in West Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. Since 1996, Ebonics has primarily been used to refer to African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a dialect distinctively different from Standard American English.
And later:
quote: While the term is avoided by most linguists,[18] it is used elsewhere (such as on Internet message boards), often for ridiculing AAVE, particularly when this is inaccurately parodied as differing more from Standard American English than it really does.[19]
I have no doubt that you do not intend for your comment to be racist. I have no interest in proving your intent. I actually have no hope of changing your mind or the way you phrase things on internet boards in the future. If it happens that you reconsider your phrasing, then bonus.
I just can't let it go on a public forum as being OK. I hate confrontation. I hate participating in forum & blog drama, and I hardly ever do. But if it's there, and I don't point it out as being problematic, then I am part of the problem.
That is all. Please carry on.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots:
quote:Originally posted by Speed:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Actually, most dogs don't chase you if you don't run.
...because they are too busy eating you.
It would be sort of pointless to chase you if you weren't running, yes.
I can't tell if this is semi-serious or not, but most of the time, if a dog starts chasing you and you simply face it and assume a dominant posture, the dog will not know what to do when it reaches you, and will lose interest.
It helps to have an umbrella, but that's not strictly necessary.
(Obviously severely disturbed/rabid dogs may be exceptions to this as well)
I wasn't being too serious.
It would be very hard to turn around and assume a dominant posture when a large enough dog is chasing you. I'm sure most people in that situation aren't thinking clearly enough to do that. And you're essentially placing your life and/or limbs on the line to do a counterintuitive action that is for many people based on mere hearsay about how to deal with dogs.
Yet I agree, running from a dog is probably not the best thing to do (unless you can get to safety long before the dog can catch up to you).
Yeah, it's also what you're supposed to do with bears, which seems even more terrifying and counter-intuitive.
It worked for my brother, though (although it was less intentional and more just that he was stunned to see a bear charging towards him, and so didn't react).
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Liz B: I have no doubt that you do not intend for your comment to be racist. I have no interest in proving your intent. I actually have no hope of changing your mind or the way you phrase things on internet boards in the future. If it happens that you reconsider your phrasing, then bonus.
I just can't let it go on a public forum as being OK. I hate confrontation. I hate participating in forum & blog drama, and I hardly ever do. But if it's there, and I don't point it out as being problematic, then I am part of the problem.
That is all. Please carry on.
Well I'm glad that you don't think I was being racist, because it seemed like that was what you were saying. It seems as though my definition of the term "Ebonics" is just different from yours. Growing up, that is the term everyone used for a certain type of urban dialect and did not necessarily pertain to any particular race. However, if that is how you took it, I apologize.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Jeff,
Ebonics certainly does refer to language as used by African Americans. You may have grown up with people who were using the term incorrectly. Not surprising that there was some confusion.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Growing up, that is the term everyone used for a certain type of urban dialect and did not necessarily pertain to any particular race.
And people use the word "French" to refer to a certain type of language and culture, one which does not necessarily pertain to any particular country.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Good point, Tom!
So when I say that French is a hilariously awful language, it would be silly for people from France to take offense. I agree!
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Seriously, though, and setting aside the beating around the bush:
"Ebonics" is called what it's called because the lower-income urban accent in question is absolutely more heavily associated with black people than with white people. Lots of white people join that subculture too, when they grow up in the same environment, but it's still associated more with black people. Same way that every British accent is associated with white people, and American Southern accents are associated with white people, even though thousands of black people have those accents as well.
Criticizing an accent is not inherently racist. Sorry, but it's not. Not even when it's an accent more heavily associated with a particular race, and you say that you prefer some other accent more heavily associated with a different race.
This charge is more manufactured racism that's supposed to reveal a hidden systemic culture of inescapable racism. It's bull****. People have irrational attractions to and revulsion for all kinds of accents without it being racially motivated.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
Here's a question: if somebody who is not African American speaks with the same dialect, what is it called? As Dan just said, it is more "associated" with black people, which makes sense, but can't other cultures or races adopt that way of speaking? If they do, does the term no longer apply to it, despite the fact that they are identical?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: Here's a question: if somebody who is not African American speaks with the same dialect, what is it called?
The same thing. AAVE is not seriously considered dependent upon the context of the race of the person who is speaking it, it's just named that way because of its origins and patterns in distribution.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:People have irrational attractions to and revulsion for all kinds of accents without it being racially motivated.
Well, yeah. Because there are plenty of accents/ dialects used within races.
I'm wiling to bet that there's a pretty strong element of classism going on in many case of "irrational...revulsion," however, even when race is not an issue.
Here's the point. If we find ourselves irritated by an accent, it's really worth the time to think about why. Sometimes we uncover some less-than-pleasant stuff.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Good point, Tom!
So when I say that French is a hilariously awful language, it would be silly for people from France to take offense. I agree!
On my authority as a French Candian, I hearby revoke Dan_Frank's rights to pastries, cheese, wine, French fries, French toast, and maple syrup.
And since Canada is America's biggest source of oil, I hearby revoke your gas rights as well. I hope you like walking. With your new diet and transportation plan, you'll be fit as a fiddle in no time.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
French fries? Not French.
And we make lots of maple syrup right here in the good old USA. (Also pastries, cheese, and wine.)
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Liz B:
quote:People have irrational attractions to and revulsion for all kinds of accents without it being racially motivated.
Well, yeah. Because there are plenty of accents/ dialects used within races.
I'm wiling to bet that there's a pretty strong element of classism going on in many case of "irrational...revulsion," however, even when race is not an issue.
Oh, yeah, I think that elitism is a far more common reason than racism. That's absolutely true. I'd go so far as to say that elitism is the cause vast, vast majority of times when someone is repelled by an accent. Whether that "accent" is spoken or in written!
u no wat i mean?
quote:Originally posted by Liz B: Here's the point. If we find ourselves irritated by an accent, it's really worth the time to think about why. Sometimes we uncover some less-than-pleasant stuff.
Eh, I think most cases of that elitism is rather trivial, really. But it's definitely worth correcting anyway. Makes communication much easier!
Posted by Liz B (Member # 8238) on :
You forgot French dressing.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Good point, Tom!
So when I say that French is a hilariously awful language, it would be silly for people from France to take offense. I agree!
On my authority as a French Candian, I hearby revoke Dan_Frank's rights to pastries, cheese, wine, French fries, French toast, and maple syrup.
And since Canada is America's biggest source of oil, I hearby revoke your gas rights as well. I hope you like walking. With your new diet and transportation plan, you'll be fit as a fiddle in no time.
Rivka beat me to this.
But yeah, is this where I tell you to stop using a car (enjoy that gas, though!) or...
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Liz B: You forgot French dressing.
Also one of the best kinds of coffee!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Also one of the best kinds of coffee!
French vanilla? French press?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Colombian, obviously.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
I was thinking French press, yeah.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Criticizing an accent is not inherently racist. Sorry, but it's not. Not even when it's an accent more heavily associated with a particular race, and you say that you prefer some other accent more heavily associated with a different race.
This charge is more manufactured racism that's supposed to reveal a hidden systemic culture of inescapable racism. It's bull****. People have irrational attractions to and revulsion for all kinds of accents without it being racially motivated.
The problem is that seemingly irrational attractions and revulsions are not always as irrational as people claim. Negative perceptions of accent or dialect usually go hand in hand with negative perceptions of the people who use that accent or dialect. And people without the negative perceptions of the people often lack the negative perceptions of their language.
For example, the Birmingham accent of British English is often considered by English people to be very ugly, and people from Birmingham are thought of as being rather thick. But
quote:American listeners, who do not recognise a Birmingham accent when they hear one, who know nothing about Birmingham and who probably don't even know where it is, do not find the Birmingham accent unpleasant at all. And everything they know about London leads them to find London accents highly attractive. (Bad Language, page 136: Andersson and Trudgill, 1990) link
Social perceptions turn out to play a rather large role in shaping our linguistic perceptions, even when we think they don't. Robert Lane Greene's You Are What You Speak is a pretty good introduction to the topic.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I personally hate "Ebonics" or AAVE, as I hate any other "dialect" that butchers the English language. It doesn't help that I strongly dislike the culture that often accompanies it. The culture I refer to idolizes excess, greed, drunkenness, drug use, violence, aggressive behavior, disrespect of women, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, selfishness, theft, noncooperation with police, etc ad nausium.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Case in point.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Stone_Wolf_: In fairness, American culture isn't that bad. It can be pretty intolerant of sexual promiscuity and drug use at times.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Riiiiight, I was referring to American culture. Very droll. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Jon Boy, let me make sure I understand you:
Because Ebonics is spoken primarily though by no means exclusively by black people (and despite the fact that there are far more black people that don't speak it than do) it is therefore racist to dislike ebonics and the subculture in which it is prevalent? Did I get that right?
I ask because you never used the word racist yourself, but I did in the post you quoted.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
No, not exactly. I'm saying that dislike of a particular language variety is usually driven by dislike of the people who speak it, even when people claim that their dislike of the variety is objective. If you hate Black English, it is probably racially motivated to some degree. Just look at the stereotypes being thrown around here about people who speak Black English.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
While a I agree with this:
quote:...dislike of a particular language variety is usually driven by dislike of the people who speak it...
I strongly disagree with this:
quote:If you hate Black English, it is probably racially motivated to some degree. Just look at the stereotypes being thrown around here about people who speak Black English.
I have no problem with anyone for the color of their skin. My theory is A-holes (and saints) come in every color.
I don't think it fair to lump a dislike of a particular subculture (not a irrational dislike mind you) with a "probable racial motivation".
I dislike "hip hop culture" (or whatever it's called, you figure out the label) and not black people. I've met plenty of members of this subculture who were non-black. And I've met plenty of well spoken, main culture African Americans who I found to be delightful individuals. It's not the amount of melanin.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Do you think all or most speakers of Black English are part of hip-hop culture?
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Jon Boy: The stereotypes you're complaining about have little to do with black people and a lot to do with a very particular black-dominated subculture. So again: does the fact that this subculture and accent are associated more with black people than any other race inherently make dislike of said subculture and accent racist?
If goths were predominantly Asian instead of white, would disliked goth subculture be racist?
Isn't that kind of absurd?
Anecdote Time: I had a job where I worked with a lot of people who spoke with at least a mild level of "Black English," (axing questions and whatnot) who were basically professional otherwise and okay people to work with. To the extent that I got used to the accent, and it doesn't bother me at all (my manager spoke that way, and she was a great lady).
But most of the people who didn't use "Black English" were generally at least a little irritated by the people who did. They felt it was unprofessional and they were disdainful of it.
Was this racially motivated? Was it motivated by classism?
Well, the problem with those ideas is that the workforce was roughly 50% black, 25% filipino, and 25% white/latino/everything else. And the demographic breakdown "Black English" speakers mirrored that pretty closely.
So... both sides had a mix of racial backgrounds. We were all the roughly the same class, as we were doing the same job (some variation due to age, of course, but not many people really thought they were "better" or whatever).
And yet there was still stigma against mispronouncing words and poor grammar.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I worked with a lot of people who spoke with at least a mild level of "Black English," (axing questions and whatnot) who were basically professional otherwise
I have to confess that I find this to be the most offensive thing you've said so far.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Do you think all or most speakers of Black English are part of hip-hop culture?
I don't think it is fair to call it "black English" anymore. This particular style of talking has spread throughout many urban areas and is certainly used by several races, including hispanics, whites, and Asians.
But to answer your question, I think you have it backwards. Hip Hop is an extension of the streets, or at least that's how it's supposed to be. It's all about the target audience. Country music is directed towards a different type of consumer, just like Hip Hop. The songs are all about making money, getting laid, selling drugs, evading the cops, and killing people. It's about getting out of the streets and making it big so you can be at the top, because money is power. You could certainly list several exceptions to this, but you'd have a hard time saying that it isn't the central theme of most of the songs. This style of music has further popularized this style of speech, because these kids (who became stars) started out poor, many on the streets, many who'd given up on their education, deciding to pursue a career through other means. They spoke to kids who were in the same position and who spoke the same language.
So as I said, it's not the cause of the language; it's an extension. It's also an extension of the lifestyle. You don't see too many lawyers or doctors who speak like rap stars. It just doesn't happen very often.
I think a lot of people are trying to be too PC with this. When you see someone write out "Dis is ta da folks who ever sed I was ghetto", there's obviously a lack of communication skills going on. I mean, this isn't just about talking, which could simply be a result of their accents; this is basic grammar and spelling. There's no excuse, except that the person just never learned how to properly write. I know many teachers, several of which have told me that a number of their kids actually write like this on their papers or tests. These are typically the problem kids, the ones who refuse to learn, who will actually say "I'm only here so that my mother can get a check" (seriously, I was told this just last week by a middle school teacher).
If you think this is just an accent, I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I worked with a lot of people who spoke with at least a mild level of "Black English," (axing questions and whatnot) who were basically professional otherwise
I have to confess that I find this to be the most offensive thing you've said so far.
Which part? Even with the small piece you chopped out I can see a few things I suppose could be offending you.
Is it "axing questions?" It's a really common mispronunciation among people who speak "Ebonics" or "Black English" or whatever the hell people want to call it. I didn't invent it, and I'm not trying to insult people who say it, either.
I think it's common even in people with fairly low-level versions of "Ebonic" accents. Sort of an equivalent of the British R or the Southern y'all, it's something that persists even in people with minimal accent.
Or was it the "professional otherwise" comment, because that's implying that speaking "Black English" is fundamentally at least a little unprofessional?
Cause, if so, I mean... sorry man, but it is. It ain't a huge deal, but it's still a mispronunciation. It's precisely as unprofessional as misspelling a word on your resume.
I'm not sure what else in the quoted segment could be offensive. That I worked? Yeah, who would hire a guy like me? I was pretty offended at the idea myself, I'll admit. Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: Do you think all or most speakers of Black English are part of hip-hop culture?
They seem pretty linked to me, although I have met a few people who speak that way but do not seem to be a part of that subculture.
All pears are fruit, but not all fruits are pears.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Or was it the "professional otherwise" comment, because that's implying that speaking "Black English" is fundamentally at least a little unprofessional?
Yes. Would you consider "y'all" to be unprofessional? What about the word "warshed," to stand in for "washed?" Do you believe that most people who pronounce "washed" "warshed" are not educated or professional enough to spell the word correctly?
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I personally hate "Ebonics" or AAVE, as I hate any other "dialect" that butchers the English language. It doesn't help that I strongly dislike the culture that often accompanies it. The culture I refer to idolizes excess, greed, drunkenness, drug use, violence, aggressive behavior, disrespect of women, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, selfishness, theft, noncooperation with police, etc ad nausium.
What a painfully ignorant screed that was. I fell sorry for you.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Or was it the "professional otherwise" comment, because that's implying that speaking "Black English" is fundamentally at least a little unprofessional?
Yes. Would you consider "y'all" to be unprofessional? What about the word "warshed," to stand in for "washed?" Do you believe that most people who pronounce "washed" "warshed" are not educated or professional enough to spell the word correctly?
I have a hard time finding a starting point in addressing the very broad sort of prejudice displayed in the previous post. This one is easier: SW seems to approach language and dialect/idiolect with the baseline assumption that that which is proper and professional is that which is spoken by the highest social class. This is an unspoken assumption, naturally, but it underpins the viewpoint. Black English is demonstrably inferior *because* it is associated with criminality and poverty. The fallacious reasoning is in insisting, again through an unspoken assumption, that the fault in character or moral fortitude that ostensibly causes poverty and criminality, also produces the perceived "degradation" of language- which is perceived as degraded due primarily to an association with the living and social conditions of a major underclass.
It's kind of the central assumption of this kind of American Calvinist thinking: the actual circumstances trace their ultimate roots to moral fortitude and god-given righteousness. And you can take that as far as you want: Blacks could have done better after slavery, they could have escaped their masters, they could have avoided being pressed into slavery; centuries ago, they could have developed as a society to the point where Europeans couldn't take such advantage of them. The senseless causes of history and geography and chance are ultimately ignored in favor of a viewpoint which favors the current circumstances as the natural result of moral superiority.
There is little room left for a subtler approach to the issues of personal responsibility and social conditions. Not surprising- the social conditions favor the person making the judgement, regardless of whether he cares to make that admission. It is likely he does not wish to, or is not capable of doing so. Typically he may reject this appeal to a subtler view by saying: "then nothing is anyone's fault!" because in this system of thought there is no room at all for the idea that moral righteousness is at all relative, or is at all dependent upon the conditions necessary for it to thrive.
If you dig deeper into that, it provides the justifications for torture (as it did in Soviet Russia), because there is no admission that a person can be degraded to a subhuman state by any external force- that force instead merely reveals one's external behaviors as a facade masking moral bankruptcy. Something Alexander Soljetnitson found interesting about sleep deprivation and it's effects on him personally- his belief in his own moral righteousness as a unique entity were crushed by it.
This is why I feel bad for SW. He *hates* this culture, and one could imagine that he fears it as well. He is barred from any appreciation of the way that people so different from him think or feel or behave as anything but an abomination. That's very unfortunate,I think. I do wish I knew a solution.
[ February 25, 2012, 10:11 AM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Don't feel sorry for me. I'm fine. Also, you included what others have said into what I have said before making giant, high horsed, elitist worded, incorrect, assumptions. And then lectured me (again) about those (again incorrect) assumptions.
I dislike a very specific subculture for good and valid reasons. I also dislike the speech patterns associated with it, which tends to butcher a language I love, lend itself to being disrespectful and crass.
It doesn't mean I'm a bubbling cauldren of hate just looking to boil over nor all that other crazy crap you attributed to me willy nilly.
You want to feel sad for someone, feel pity for children who are starving. I don't need your pity.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Or was it the "professional otherwise" comment, because that's implying that speaking "Black English" is fundamentally at least a little unprofessional?
Yes. Would you consider "y'all" to be unprofessional? What about the word "warshed," to stand in for "washed?" Do you believe that most people who pronounce "washed" "warshed" are not educated or professional enough to spell the word correctly?
Sure! A little bit, anyway.
It was a job representing a large financial institution to clients over the phone. Slang, idioms, mispronunciations, all of that is at least slightly unprofessional in my opinion.
Some clients didn't care, some did. (The racist clients were the ones who did things like call a guy with the last name Lee not an American, or the people who didn't like being helped by a guy with perfect professional diction because he had a very deep "black" voice. That's racism. Getting annoyed because someone uses slang is more forgivable, to me.)
But the grammar and pronunciation stuff... it's a little unprofessional, yes. Yet it's not a big deal, though, which was also my point. You did get that, right?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Here's the thing: it is indeed a big deal.
Why?
Because the people who are speaking "unprofessionally" in this case have grown up their whole lives learning a particular dialect. This dialect is as valid and as comprehensible as any other dialect of English, and has served them well; they are not necessarily any more unlikely to misunderstand the sentence "he asked what she was thinking" just because they'd pronounce the second word "axed." Then, at some point, they have to speak across class and regional divides, and discover -- or, in this particular case, are more likely to have grown up knowing -- that the way they (and everyone to whom they are close) speak is considered somehow inferior. A symbol of ignorance. A symptom of some lack.
And so when they answer the phone, maybe up to half the people to whom they're speaking will hear them say "axed" and think, "Oh, great. I've got someone who disrespects women and police and does casual violence to our beautiful English language on the line." But those same people will then, when "axed" about it, say "but it's no big deal."
I'm not saying it's surprising. After all, broadcasters have been training for far longer than I'm alive to ditch their regional accents in favor of "American standard" -- which, luckily for me, just happens to be the predominant dialect of the area in which I was born and raised. But it is indeed a big deal, especially when your dialect is not considered merely an indicator of the region in which you were born but a predictor of whether or not you're likely to sell drugs and cheat on your child's (unmarried) mother.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Don't feel sorry for me. I'm fine. Also, you included what others have said into what I have said before making giant, high horsed, elitist worded, incorrect, assumptions. And then lectured me (again) about those (again incorrect) assumptions.
I dislike a very specific subculture for good and valid reasons.
No, your reasons are neither good nor valid. And you can deflect as much as you like by casting aspersions on me and my " high horse." You're the one who hates black American culture, and said about as much a few posts back. You are pitiable. Honestly. I understand you didn't say that you hate black people- you know better. But you forgot where you were. You forgot who you were talking to. You forgot how far your bullshit would carry you here.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Here's the thing: it is indeed a big deal.
Why?
Because the people who are speaking "unprofessionally" in this case have grown up their whole lives learning a particular dialect. This dialect is as valid and as comprehensible as any other dialect of English, and has served them well; they are not necessarily any more unlikely to misunderstand the sentence "he asked what she was thinking" just because they'd pronounce the second word "axed." Then, at some point, they have to speak across class and regional divides, and discover -- or, in this particular case, are more likely to have grown up knowing -- that the way they (and everyone to whom they are close) speak is considered somehow inferior. A symbol of ignorance. A symptom of some lack.
And so when they answer the phone, maybe up to half the people to whom they're speaking will hear them say "axed" and think, "Oh, great. I've got someone who disrespects women and police and does casual violence to our beautiful English language on the line." But those same people will then, when "axed" about it, say "but it's no big deal."
I'm not saying it's surprising. After all, broadcasters have been training for far longer than I'm alive to ditch their regional accents in favor of "American standard" -- which, luckily for me, just happens to be the predominant dialect of the area in which I was born and raised. But it is indeed a big deal, especially when your dialect is not considered merely an indicator of the region in which you were born but a predictor of whether or not you're likely to sell drugs and cheat on your child's (unmarried) mother.
You're conflating a lot of issues here, Tom.
You get close to the point in your last paragraph, when you talk about news broadcasters being encouraged to ditch their native accents. It's not just "Black English" accents that I'm considering a little unprofessional.
Forgive me if I'm misremembering, but I could swear you are one of many folks here on Hatrack that holds posters to a higher standard than some places. That is, you expect people to largely communicate in correctly spelled, grammatically sound sentences. How exactly is this different?
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Don't feel sorry for me. I'm fine. Also, you included what others have said into what I have said before making giant, high horsed, elitist worded, incorrect, assumptions. And then lectured me (again) about those (again incorrect) assumptions.
I dislike a very specific subculture for good and valid reasons.
No, your reasons are neither good nor valid. And you can deflect as much as you like by casting aspersions on me and my " high horse." You're the one who hates black American culture, and said about as much a few posts back. You are pitiable. Honestly. I understand you didn't say that you hate black people- you know better. But you forgot where you were. You forgot who you were talking to. You forgot how far your bullshit would carry you here.
Oof, Orincoro, you're laying it on way thick.
I personally think that a lot of folks who have some level of "Black English" accent have little or nothing to do with the more repugnant elements of the particular black subculture that Stone Wolf is talking about. The same way that many black people don't speak that way in the first place, many people who speak that way aren't actually in the subculture.
It's a way of speaking that's pretty common in Oakland, near where I live. I don't think any of my coworkers in that old job were meaningfully invested in the subculture.
All that being said, oh man, Orincoro, your dense and histrionic attack against Stone Wolf is laughable.
The subculture (not the way of speaking, but the actual subculture) is filled with horrendous cultural memes and some common, awful values. It's hardly an isolated example of a subculture with some really atrocious values and traditions (see: hippies, goths, Libertarians, a subset of unlabeled gamer nerds, the list goes on.)
Sorry, you can jam your PCness down Stone Wolf's throat all you like, but it doesn't change the truth.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:That is, you expect people to largely communicate in correctly spelled, grammatically sound sentences. How exactly is this different?
The big difference, to me, is between dialect and error. Someone who posts on the Internet exclusively in leet-speak is not someone who can't tell the difference between "their" and "there," necessarily.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:That is, you expect people to largely communicate in correctly spelled, grammatically sound sentences. How exactly is this different?
The big difference, to me, is between dialect and error. Someone who posts on the Internet exclusively in leet-speak is not someone who can't tell the difference between "their" and "there," necessarily.
Sorry, it might just be because I've got a low-grade fever, but I'm having a hard time parsing this.
So, in the internet example, leet is dialect and their/there is error? Which one do you disdain and/or correct people and/or suggest they change their behavior?
And "black english" is... a dialect, or an error?
Sorry I'm failing to read between the lines, but I genuinely want to understand.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Bored now.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Bored now.
I still love you, SW. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
You know what's not an internet pet peeve of mine?
Massive thread derails.
Thank god.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Here's the thing: it is indeed a big deal.
Why?
Because the people who are speaking "unprofessionally" in this case have grown up their whole lives learning a particular dialect. This dialect is as valid and as comprehensible as any other dialect of English, and has served them well; they are not necessarily any more unlikely to misunderstand the sentence "he asked what she was thinking" just because they'd pronounce the second word "axed." Then, at some point, they have to speak across class and regional divides, and discover -- or, in this particular case, are more likely to have grown up knowing -- that the way they (and everyone to whom they are close) speak is considered somehow inferior. A symbol of ignorance. A symptom of some lack.
And so when they answer the phone, maybe up to half the people to whom they're speaking will hear them say "axed" and think, "Oh, great. I've got someone who disrespects women and police and does casual violence to our beautiful English language on the line." But those same people will then, when "axed" about it, say "but it's no big deal."
I'm not saying it's surprising. After all, broadcasters have been training for far longer than I'm alive to ditch their regional accents in favor of "American standard" -- which, luckily for me, just happens to be the predominant dialect of the area in which I was born and raised. But it is indeed a big deal, especially when your dialect is not considered merely an indicator of the region in which you were born but a predictor of whether or not you're likely to sell drugs and cheat on your child's (unmarried) mother.
You're conflating a lot of issues here, Tom.
You get close to the point in your last paragraph, when you talk about news broadcasters being encouraged to ditch their native accents. It's not just "Black English" accents that I'm considering a little unprofessional.
Forgive me if I'm misremembering, but I could swear you are one of many folks here on Hatrack that holds posters to a higher standard than some places. That is, you expect people to largely communicate in correctly spelled, grammatically sound sentences. How exactly is this different?
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Don't feel sorry for me. I'm fine. Also, you included what others have said into what I have said before making giant, high horsed, elitist worded, incorrect, assumptions. And then lectured me (again) about those (again incorrect) assumptions.
I dislike a very specific subculture for good and valid reasons.
No, your reasons are neither good nor valid. And you can deflect as much as you like by casting aspersions on me and my " high horse." You're the one who hates black American culture, and said about as much a few posts back. You are pitiable. Honestly. I understand you didn't say that you hate black people- you know better. But you forgot where you were. You forgot who you were talking to. You forgot how far your bullshit would carry you here.
Oof, Orincoro, you're laying it on way thick.
I personally think that a lot of folks who have some level of "Black English" accent have little or nothing to do with the more repugnant elements of the particular black subculture that Stone Wolf is talking about. The same way that many black people don't speak that way in the first place, many people who speak that way aren't actually in the subculture.
It's a way of speaking that's pretty common in Oakland, near where I live. I don't think any of my coworkers in that old job were meaningfully invested in the subculture.
All that being said, oh man, Orincoro, your dense and histrionic attack against Stone Wolf is laughable.
The subculture (not the way of speaking, but the actual subculture) is filled with horrendous cultural memes and some common, awful values. It's hardly an isolated example of a subculture with some really atrocious values and traditions (see: hippies, goths, Libertarians, a subset of unlabeled gamer nerds, the list goes on.)
Sorry, you can jam your PCness down Stone Wolf's throat all you like, but it doesn't change the truth.
:facepalm:
Whatever "the subculture" is, and whatever a "meaningful investment" might mean, you have no clue what you're talking about. Moreover you address nothing of what I was posting to SW, other than to react to my attitude. As if I was some PC militant. Don't be so thick.
"Doesn't change the truth" indeed. This is the natural refuge of the ignorant when confronted with his ignorance. "I know what I know." no argument against that. Because it doesn't mean anything.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Dan...meaningfull communication with him when he is like this nigh impossible. I suggest that you only try if the process amuses you and not with any expectations of breaking through the rhetoric.
Jeff...thanks, you too man.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: :facepalm:
Whatever "the subculture" is, and whatever a "meaningful investment" might mean, you have no clue what you're talking about. Moreover you address nothing of what I was posting to SW, other than to react to my attitude. As if I was some PC militant. Don't be so thick.
"Doesn't change the truth" indeed. This is the natural refuge of the ignorant when confronted with his ignorance. "I know what I know." no argument against that. Because it doesn't mean anything.
Dude, first of all, despite the fact that you addressed SW, the line you quoted was written by me, so you were, as SW said, conflating things written by different people and concocting a complete straw man in your head. Since you were also doing this with a really histrionic over-the-top tone, yeah, I decided it wasn't worth it to even wade into the details, and I just chastized you on tone.
But it's okay, I can go into details if you prefer.
In case you've forgotten what was said, here it is again:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:(Originally posted by Dan, not SW) Or was it the "professional otherwise" comment, because that's implying that speaking "Black English" is fundamentally at least a little unprofessional?
Yes. Would you consider "y'all" to be unprofessional? What about the word "warshed," to stand in for "washed?" Do you believe that most people who pronounce "washed" "warshed" are not educated or professional enough to spell the word correctly?
I have a hard time finding a starting point in addressing the very broad sort of prejudice displayed in the previous post. This one is easier: SW seems to approach language and dialect/idiolect with the baseline assumption that that which is proper and professional is that which is spoken by the highest social class. This is an unspoken assumption, naturally, but it underpins the viewpoint. Black English is demonstrably inferior *because* it is associated with criminality and poverty. The fallacious reasoning is in insisting, again through an unspoken assumption, that the fault in character or moral fortitude that ostensibly causes poverty and criminality, also produces the perceived "degradation" of language- which is perceived as degraded due primarily to an association with the living and social conditions of a major underclass.
Again this is made more difficult by the fact that you're combining me and SW in your quest to make up motives, but since you're reacting to something I said, I'll go ahead and treat it as if this was talking about me, not him. If you think this was the wrong decision, let me know!
That being said, this whole paragraph is wrong. The reason I think it's less professional, as I've said numerous times, is that it involves a lack of proper grammar and pronunciation. That's it! There are jobs where this type of "professionalism" is largely irrelevant (I work in one right now, in fact!), but in the type of job where you dress in a suit to talk on the phone, your tone and diction and syntax all matter a great deal.
Everything else you said here is just made up. You say it's an "unspoken assumption" wisely, because that's true. It's unspoken, and the only one assuming it is you.
What else is there to say? I can't disprove this any more than I can disprove someone's belief in god. You think you know why I'm really saying what I'm saying, and no amount of counterargument or denial is sufficient.
Your theory is immune to criticism, not because it can refute said criticism, but because it never lowers itself from its lofty pedestal to a place where criticism can reasonably be applied.
And I think I can prove it, too. If I'm wrong, explain to me what the failure condition of your argument is. What point here are you offering up for criticism that, if criticized, would cause you to change your mind?
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: It's kind of the central assumption of this kind of American Calvinist thinking: the actual circumstances trace their ultimate roots to moral fortitude and god-given righteousness. And you can take that as far as you want: Blacks could have done better after slavery, they could have escaped their masters, they could have avoided being pressed into slavery; centuries ago, they could have developed as a society to the point where Europeans couldn't take such advantage of them. The senseless causes of history and geography and chance are ultimately ignored in favor of a viewpoint which favors the current circumstances as the natural result of moral superiority.
You just keep going with it. I don't know what specific criticism to offer here, man, since this attitude doesn't reflect the reality of the positions put forth in this thread.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: There is little room left for a subtler approach to the issues of personal responsibility and social conditions. Not surprising- the social conditions favor the person making the judgement, regardless of whether he cares to make that admission. It is likely he does not wish to, or is not capable of doing so. Typically he may reject this appeal to a subtler view by saying: "then nothing is anyone's fault!" because in this system of thought there is no room at all for the idea that moral righteousness is at all relative, or is at all dependent upon the conditions necessary for it to thrive.
Here you've almost got an interesting topic for discussion. I mean, it's still totally devoid of any relation to anything anyone in this thread was actually saying, but on its own merits, this is interesting fodder for discussion. To what extent is it okay for people to blame their situation on external forces? And to what extent should they take individual responsibility and devote their energy towards improvement?
But yeah, not at all related, for the reasons stated above.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: If you dig deeper into that, it provides the justifications for torture (as it did in Soviet Russia), because there is no admission that a person can be degraded to a subhuman state by any external force- that force instead merely reveals one's external behaviors as a facade masking moral bankruptcy. Something Alexander Soljetnitson found interesting about sleep deprivation and it's effects on him personally- his belief in his own moral righteousness as a unique entity were crushed by it.
Again, interesting stuff on its own merits, but unrelated to anything I said. And, vaguely insulting because you're literally trying to equate my (or SW's) position to one advocating torture! Pretty slick!
But, you know, slick like something gross and slimy, not something nice and lubricated.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: This is why I feel bad for SW. He *hates* this culture, and one could imagine that he fears it as well. He is barred from any appreciation of the way that people so different from him think or feel or behave as anything but an abomination. That's very unfortunate,I think. I do wish I knew a solution.
One could imagine all sorts of things. One could imagine that you are so wracked with guilt at your own racism that you project it onto others. But one would be spinning that theory from whole cloth, and it'd be just as bogus as what you're imagining.
I think you've amply demonstrated the sort of attitude you get when you value moral and cultural relativism above all else, though, which is interesting.
Stepping away from the fact that you attributed this thing I said to Stone Wolf for a second...
Stone Wolf explicitly laid out the stuff that bothers him about the hip-hop subculture. You can disagree with him about that, and point out how it's not like he said (good luck with that!) or you can point out that there's much more to it than what he said (good luck with that in a not-sarcastic way!), but you're doing neither of those things. The last couple sentences you had here are the closest you got to it, and it was just a set-up for a jab, not an actual observation of some value in the hip-hop subculture.
Anyway, the beginning of this post is the most important. If you care to respond to any of it, that's the stuff that actually gets to the heart of the problem. It's the heart of the problem with most people deeply invested in "social justice" really: Imperviousness to Criticism.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Dan...meaningfull communication with him when he is like this nigh impossible. I suggest that you only try if the process amuses you and not with any expectations of breaking through the rhetoric.
That's the only reason I ever argue with anyone on Hatrack!
Well, not just "amuses" me, I guess. I also learn from it.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I've tried in the past, because at times it -is- amusing, but be forewarned, Orin tends to make it personal.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: To what extent is it okay for people to blame their situation on external forces?
Slightly more then what is true.
quote:And to what extent should they take individual responsibility...
Slightly less then what is true.
quote:...and devote their energy towards improvement?
110% because even if every single one of someone's problems are not their fault, no one else is going to fix their problems for them.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I've tried in the past, because at times it -is- amusing, but be forewarned, Orin tends to make it personal.
I've argued with Orincoro many times, I'm not too worried about it. He's a decent enough guy, he's just a little prickly. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I've tried in the past, because at times it -is- amusing, but be forewarned, Orin tends to make it personal.
I find this comment to be rather hypocritical.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
-That- is your only comment?
According to you I'm a pitiable, ignorant, hateful, jerk but I'm a hypocrite for saying you tend to make things personal?
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