Modern English
DIALECT[n]: A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists: Cockney is a dialect of English.
I am a master of multiple dialects of the English language:
1) Proper English
2) Everyday English
3) ???? English (because I refuse to use the word "Ebonics", entertaining suggestions - Street English?)
My Proper English was learned in the grade school years and is what I use at work and not many other places. It confuses some people who first meet my acquaintance over the phone and are surprised to see the color of my skin when they meet me, having imagined me as white. It makes my sentences formally complete, and keeps my prepositions from dangling.
My Street English (we're going with that for now) was fine-tuned at Norfolk State University. It does not include use of the N word for reasons that I've gone over before. I can turn it on and off as if it were a light switch, but normally only once spoken to in the same language. It has been known to surprise people who have never heard me speak it because it is such a departure from...
...My Everyday English, which is the most often utilized. It is a Proper English and Street English hybrid that I speak every day of the week. Prepositions may tend not to dangle, but under no circumstances am I going to speak this particular dialect in front of a boss.
Bloglings? What do you speak?
(I didn't touch on accents above, but very quickly... No matter what anyone says, everyone has an accent. I was once told I have a "Northern Virginia accent" which sounded prepostorous to me at the time... but when you think about it, you don't think you have an accent because everyone around you sounds the same. But, believe me, if you go to Boston or Alabama or Texas, DC natives, YOU are the one with the accent. There's no argument for that.)
I am a master of multiple dialects of the English language:
1) Proper English
2) Everyday English
3) ???? English (because I refuse to use the word "Ebonics", entertaining suggestions - Street English?)
My Proper English was learned in the grade school years and is what I use at work and not many other places. It confuses some people who first meet my acquaintance over the phone and are surprised to see the color of my skin when they meet me, having imagined me as white. It makes my sentences formally complete, and keeps my prepositions from dangling.
My Street English (we're going with that for now) was fine-tuned at Norfolk State University. It does not include use of the N word for reasons that I've gone over before. I can turn it on and off as if it were a light switch, but normally only once spoken to in the same language. It has been known to surprise people who have never heard me speak it because it is such a departure from...
...My Everyday English, which is the most often utilized. It is a Proper English and Street English hybrid that I speak every day of the week. Prepositions may tend not to dangle, but under no circumstances am I going to speak this particular dialect in front of a boss.
Bloglings? What do you speak?
(I didn't touch on accents above, but very quickly... No matter what anyone says, everyone has an accent. I was once told I have a "Northern Virginia accent" which sounded prepostorous to me at the time... but when you think about it, you don't think you have an accent because everyone around you sounds the same. But, believe me, if you go to Boston or Alabama or Texas, DC natives, YOU are the one with the accent. There's no argument for that.)
I-66: Unfiltered on 3/23/2006 ::
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23 e-pinions:
I am told all the time I have an accent because us hot upstaters like to talk through our noses. Lucky us.
I too can do street talk and turn it on and off. At college my friends would tease me because I would walk around on campus and see a Professor and say 'Hello Professor how are you?' and then walk by the BSU kids and bust out with 'Sup kids, how you doin? Wanna holla at me this weekend!?' And they'd yell back 'SUPPP SHAKE N BAKE' (yes I was shake n bake in college-that was me)
This story is much better told in person, but you get the idea.
olde englysh!
http://houseoffame.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/
Like you, it depends on where I am. I was raised in the rural south, and can swing back into that dialect/accent at a moment's notice (you'd be amazed how much friendlier people tend to be in general if you have a bit of a twang).
I can also speak wookie, which is a stupid language my sisters and I made up. ;)
In general, though, it's slangy-English.
one of the Toon Army, are you?
ouyay eferpray emay
Woo... I'm seeing some racy Pig Latin messages up above!
As for me, I've been told that I speak "like a super intelligent Valley Girl." It was meant as a compliment.
Since I've started law school, though, I've been noticing a rise in the legal-ese talk... ;P
I speak a mixture of street and proper I think...I actually put out an "English To Ebonics" underground paper in high school with another friend...it was a big hit...And that was 10 years ago...Ebonics has become so much more a part of our culture since then...I should start another.
And plus yeah I have the Jersey Accent. Low voice and my way of saying the word "drawer" is something like this.
Yea, get it out of the drauuu.
I love you Tony Soprano.
A few years ago I was in a cab and the driver told me that I speak very well for a black girl.
Ummm, thanks?
I suppose I speak proper english? But I get the same reaction when people first meet me after speaking with me on the phone, not to mention that my name is Heather. It's actually kind of fun.
I totally know where you're coming from on this one.
BLS: jealous? ;)
Kassy: you totally don't sound Jersey, though
Heather: I would've spit on the cabby's money.
Regarding race suppositions, I was a room away some years ago at work when someone entered the office of a very pale-skinned red-headed woman and asked her rather seriously "Are you Towanda?" - I was at my best in stifling the laughter on that one.
I speak MappyBeez. It's a combination of my northern Illinois nasal voice mixed with my college rural south Georgia years (where they thought I was from Canada and would ask me to say 'Bobby, don't ya know' over and over), and throw in some dialiect from my time in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Syracuse, and there ya go.
Not to mention my hot Moroccan accent I picked up in the 3 days we were there. No, I didn't, but that would be fun.
Sometimes when people hear that I'm from Massachusettes they say, "well of course, you have an accent," which to me is hillarious because I in no way do that weird Eastern-Mass thing with my vowels. If anything, I sound like a bored Valley Girl, most likely the product of whatever mass pop culture virus affects many other women my age (late 20s), combined with the effects of too many early childhood ear infections. My ex, who grew up in Los Angeles always found it amusing. I have learned to think it's a mildy entertaining personality quirk.
I usually try to sound like a law student should sound - proper English, enunciating all words as they should be, etc; but when I get angry, suddenly I belong on the set of The Sopranos...
I had to train myself not to talk like a hick ("runnin'", "warsh", etc.) but my use of words like "wicked" and stuff really can throw people.
Re: Towanda -- I have a fair-skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed cousin named Tuwana. I have no idea where my (Old Order Mennonite) aunt and uncle got THAT one from.
-- Blogger formerly known as RC
I speak a combo of Everyday English, Proper English, Fabulous English (with lots of "dahhh-lings" and over-emphasis), and Midwestern (with flat sounding vowels).
Where did accents come from? 200 years ago, barely any of our ancestors were in this country. If we all came from other places, how are there so many accents in the U.S.?
Aww thx 1-66!! :-)
Trans-Atlantic Deb.
Hmmm, let me see. I have an accent. I work with people who hear the Baltimore "OOOOOO" come out sometimes. I have no idea how that happens ;o)
Growing up in PG the Street English loves to come out of Robin On A Drink on a regular basis. Kathryn has seen that in action a few too many times.
Mapster: Wasn't Bobby from Wisconsin?
Bagel: aren't you always in the mood?
Pretty: Hurry up and pahk your cah!
Lawnut: Welcome! Did you and BLS get your avatars at a 2 for 1? :)
Scarlet: Do you know what the plural for "y'all" is? (as it's typically associated with hick-speak)... Answer: All y'all
SA: Old Order Mennonite... I think I've seen posters of that on the walls at my dentist. Brush and floss, people.
MG!: midwestern, like a Chi-caag-go thing.
'vet: it's because we came from so many places that there are so many accents
Kassy: I figured you'd take that as a compliment
Cube: Trans-Atlantic, for a worldly Cube
Robin: I thought people from Balimer had their own language anyway.
"if someone else is using street English and I am not. It makes me feel condescending, as if I am using proper English just to point out to them that theirs is, in my conception, improper."
You make a very interesting point. I was criticized a few times, especially at NSU, for certain things I would say (or not say) that were different from what everyone else said. The difference was mostly based on background, but I was told at times at the beginning of my time there that I "sounded white". Granted, that's more of a self-condemning assessment, as it implies that only white people speak proper English... but I know what they were trying to say.
I'm told "You don't have a Boston accent!" - even though I grew up 15 miles from the city. That's partially because I detest the strong accent, and also because I just don't talk that way. But "Arlington" always comes out "Ahlington." "Number" is "numba" and "drawer" is "draw."
Oh, and I also have a bit of British in my pronunciation. But that's just pulling a Gwyneth Paltrow and putting on airs. :-)
lord knows what they use on THIS campus. It's nothing brought up so far. I emplore everyeone to come to the CUC computer lab in Takoma Park.
and before I hear about what a shitty school this is, IT iS, but it's also giving me a teaching degree in less than a year
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