A rant about poor English

I don't expect people who live in countries in which English is not the native language to speak or type perfect English. I don't expect perfect spelling. I don't really expect ANYONE to use perfect grammar and spelling.

What bugs me is when people use gangster-speak to cover up for having poor English. I find it completely unnaceptable, and I will rank on someone every time for using it. There are a few posts on these forums where someone from a place in which English is not the native language has been trying to act as if he's in a gang, as if it will somehow get him more respect than if he just posted his natural poor English. I just don't get it.

Even if it's genuine, and gangster-speak is the only way they know how to speak, I'll rank on them too. I think it's pathetic and it's why I hate most modern rap which glamorizes that type of uneducated culture.

I also feel that the overuse of abbreviations is pathetic as well--I'm talking when just about every other word is an abbreviation. If someone is that bad at typing, they should get a voice translation program.

Ugh!

Blah blah blah!

hmm I've always thought they should teach ebonics as a foreign language

...it grates my nerves, but i grant folks their affectations - language evolves, and the cream rises...it might be different cream from decade to decade, generation to generation, century to century, but within context i suspect the ratio remains fairly constant...

...language is never a static system, and to force it is akin to holding back the tide: with monumental effort, one might succeed in the short term, but over the longer view the effort generally causes the ecosystem more harm than good...why not drift in the surf and enjoy its diversity, instead?..

sup dog

y, u da gramr teechr or smth lolz

(sorry )

word to the mothafuka, home slice, aight

Woohoo! Another grammar/spelling teacher on the forums.


It bothers me too sometimes, but I usually don't personally attack people for their lack of skills, it's just not nice.

I will totally meet you in the Bronx if you promise to do that. I will bring a camera.

Will you be passing those photos out for free or be charging a fee?

aparently theres always a finders fee

I'll charge fiddy cent!

"why not drift in the surf and enjoy its diversity, instead?"

Because the kind of speech the OP is talking about is anything but diverse. There is nothing wrong with imaginative use of the word "shit", say, but when that word is used at the expense of all others, including words that more emphatically, creatively and succinctly describe the subject, then you have degradation, not enrichment, of the language.

Personally, I get annoyed by the many sufferers of LOL Tourettes that fill the internet.

Musuko.

Not always... just for you

Good one! But technically...that would be a "dollar bill yawl" right? Each coin is woth fiddy cent...so 2 makes a "dollar bill yawl"

I thought this thread would be about the British lower classes

Dearly Darlings,

I do have an advantage being a little purple haired old lady. When I don't understand what some one is typing I ask them to please state what ever they are saying again, as I am "hard of typing." Most people laugh and type in the closest proximity to English that I understand. I have met some nice Spanish people who are helping me with my poor Spanish speaking skills. As for the Gangster folk...I have not met any yet. I suppose I should find a rather tame night club and go meet some.

Ever Yours,

Mrs Showdog Tiger

Break me off a piece of dat ass pls.

language has always been changing ...

perhaps because of the use of the internet rapid changes
in linguistics are more noticeable now

people need to communicate faster than before,
than the time it would take to type out lengthy shakespearean syntax ...
(which you might prefer more)

math, science and technology have also created new forms of language ...
from calculus to binary codes, etc ...

Binary Codes and other techno and internet languages
are as important for todays forms of communication,
as were the drawings of pictures and written symbols
on the walls of caves during prehistoric times.

without this newer form of language and cummunication,
you wouldnt have cell phones, computers, the internet, ipods,
bio-chemistry, string theories, space flight,
nor the means to create a newer and more sleeker tampon

consequently, people do use abbreviations, derivations,
and even make up words and symbols to express themselves,
as well as infusing the language of their own culture into process ...

much the same way you have done: ... "Ugh! Blah blah blah!"


¸·:·´Arsenic



.

Blacker than the nighttime sky of Bed-Stuy in July
Blacker than the seed in the blackberry pie
Blacker than the middle of my eye
Black like feh-lah man cry
Some man wan ask "Who am I?"
I simply reply, "The U.N.I., V.E.R.S.A.L. Magnetic"
Work to respect the angelic, climb the mountaintop
and tell it til the valley's enveloped
You're full of big chat but you nah know me
I'm dark like the side of the moon you don't see
when the moon shine newly

It can lead to confusion. In another online game I was with a group of people and we were planning to go to a location for an activity. As were were finalizing our decision, one of the people said, "I'm down".

I replied, "Don't worry, when we get there we'll cheer you up."

There was a long pause of silence in which I realized that he didn't mean "mildly depressed."

Hey, I'm talking about in text. In person I just usually try to pretend I understand and then try to get away from whoever it is as quickly as possible.

Man, in person it's sometimes even worse:

"Do half lace fih sen am?" = "Do you have the latest Fifty Cent album"

"Cocks you quesh?" = "Can I ask you a question?"

I remember working at a retail electronics place, and I've had to get other employees to help some customers--someone asked that "Fifty Cent album" question on the phone, and I had to ask the guy to repeat what he said 5 times (he was getting angry by the 3rd time)--the last time time I said, "With your accent, I really can't understand what you're saying, can you say it slowly?" he got really offended and said "What f*ck you talkin 'bout?! I ain got no ack sen! DO HALF LACE FIH SEN AM, OR WHUH?" I said "Please hold while I get someone who can help you better than I can." After I got another employee who listens to primarily rap to help the guy, she asked me, "Are you serious that you couldn't understand what he was saying?" and I said, "What WAS he saying? I really have no clue."

...once, back in college, i was utterly befuddled by this person in a bookstore continually asking where he could find sand fishing books - sand fishing?..i'm not much of sportsperson, so really i had no clue, but he was quite adamant that sand fishing should be trivially easy to locate in any bookstore...

...well, i left the store quite perplexed, mostly at what sort of cultural vaccuum i must live in to be absolutely clueless about sand fishing, especially in light of this guy having been so insistent about what seemed, to me, a rather obscure and arbitrary subject - then it hit me: science fiction...