Number 99
A local elementary school has a new program that teaches "diversity" in language, that is, regional and cultural dialects. They learn, for instance, that pop is called soda, tonic, soft drink, dope, coke, lemonade, cocola, fizzy drink, and throat burner in different parts of the country. "Pop" is of course the real word. "Dope" is a slang word from the early days of pop, when it was mixed in drug stores and sometimes contained cocaine. (Did you know you could buy cocaine and other interesting items from the old Sears catalogs?) Never heard "throat burner" and never heard "lemonade" use to mean pop. Any of you out there know any other words for carbonated beverages?
The curriculum was developed by Julie Sweetland, who is working toward a Ph.D. in linguistics at Stanford. She says, "If you teach kids and teachers to think more like linguists, then that can improve the teaching of writing. By thinking like a linguist, I mean starting from the assumption that all styles of language are valid and have their own system. One is not better than the other, although they can be better suited for different purposes."
Another teacher at the school said, "Before we started talking about this, I really noticed that I emphasized standard language a lot."
That's her job. Although Sweetland's program is valuable, it would be a mistake to completely replace the traditional teaching of standard English with "code switching" (or style shifting) between standard English and dialect. Twelve years of schooling doesn't seem to be enough to make everyone functionally literate, let alone skilled in the use of standard English. It isn't the business of the schools to teach people their own dialect or slang, though that can be in interesting aspect of the study of English. All these variations on English are valid, and language changes constantly because of the variety of influences from within and without. But one of the purposes of teaching English to people who speak it is to pass on the (yes, I'll say it) dominant culture and give us a common culture, so we don't Balkanize into little pockets of tribes shooting at each other from street corners or hollers. Students could rightly complain if they are not taught standard English as a survival tool.
I've seen in my experience as a teacher that students too often feel that they're judged and looked down on personally or socially for their grammatical mistakes or accents ("Ooh, you're an English teacher! I always hated English"). Often they may then assume a kind of reverse bias against using standard English, though a lot of Americans use this "code switching." Interesting phrase. It means more than simply switching styles. The code conveyed by your style of language tells people that you're one of them, or you're not. Years ago I worked with a black woman in Tuskegee, Alabama, who could easily switch between a southern (black) voice, and a northern (white) voice. She had lived in New York City. Some black people will attack others for "acting white" or "talking white", as if it's a betrayal. All of us make some kind of judgment based on variations in language.
You have to make a conscious decision to do this, to learn a new style. We all know people who don't or won't ~ immigrants who keep their accent forever. Remember Lawrence Welk? He was born in North Dakota and sounded like an immigrant all his life. There are lots of people whose speech isn't much affected by the more or less standard English they listen to every day on television. It's a personal decision, and it's true, it can affect the course of your life. But learning standard English is not too much to ask of a student. Students should learn a foreign language (not a dialect), because it demands attention to grammatical structures that learning dialect words (pop vs. soda) or accents ("Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd") does not.
In my tragic junior college English class last year, one student asked if I understood what he meant if he said, "You're looking phat" (luckily I did), and so on. He was both pleased and disappointed that I did. I learned it from TV. It was a loss of a personal code word: social cohesion based on private knowledge. But I had to turn the class back to standard English ~ not as much fun, but I told them I can only teach them what I know, and English 101 is about standard English, something we all can share, and something that they could take with them as one more survival skill in this particular culture.
I don't want to lose any of those individual variations, but think of it this way: why are we the United States of America, and not 50 separate small countries?
From Miss Manners:
Q: Dear Miss Manners:I have a casual friendship with a man I meet in the park. My problem is that every time the man and I part, he leaves with the saying "God bless." That's all, not "Nice seeing you" or "Have a nice day." How am I supposed to reply to "God bless?"
A: "Goodbye." It means the same thing.
Goodbye is an old English contraction of "God be with you." Perhaps the ACLU should make a case that no one be allowed to use this word in a public venue, schools, government offices, etc. This includes "adios", which means "to God".
Fred thinks "God bless" without an object (e.g., "you") ought to be banned. We say "Bless you" for a sneeze; we don't say "Bless". The subject is implied.
Who is the implied subject in the subgirdular imprecative, "F--- you"?
At a local theater, banners proclaiming upcoming performances bore the slogan "Great theatre in a great theater." Their PR department obviously had not read PO 2, explaining that "theatre" is the British spelling; it does not have a different meaning than "theater," the American spelling.
TV blurb for old Dolly Parton movie, Rhinestone:
"Country star bets virtue she can make cabby a star."
"Virtue" seems like such an old-fashioned word in a TV schedule. It means Dolly bet her sexual favors. As I said in PO 31, the root of the word is vir (man), which evolved into virtue meaning strength, chastity being thought to be a woman's chief strength. Someone who would use sex as in barter for something relatively unimportant doesn't have that particular virtue, in any sense, to start with. You've got to trade it for something big.
All kidding aside, is it possible to trade a "virtue" (any virtue)? Discuss amongst yourselves.
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