Quote:
Originally posted by maleficent
For that matter, even the deep south in the US.
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Maybe I've grown accustomed to the dialect and method of speaking in the South over the years, but as I recall, from the very first encounter with an individual speaking the so-called "southern draw," I found it easier to understand than any of the other accents in the United States. In the end, what you are condemning is an accent and not an entire restructuring of the English language. One can speak fluent
proper English with a Southern accent and still get a point across. In fact, and again, we may be debating different perceptions of the same thing, the common language of antebellum south, circa 1864, dwarfs our present vocabulary in comparison and contrasts with our present accepted staccato, business-style sentence structure. What I've read in letters and novels of the era is more akin to modern poetry than our "modernized" discourse.
What Bill Cosby is talking about is (as previously mentioned) a "perversion of the English language" that exists as a complete restructuring of accepted grammatical customs. "Where you is" is not a correctly structured English statement or question.
Quote:
Originally posted by maleficent
I respectfully disagree with you. With colloquialisms and slang there's more than one version of English. I have always spoken English, but when I spent a semester in France, the first class they had us take was slang, cussing, and regionalisms just so we could survive, because in any language, very few folks use perfect grammar all the time.
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Chicago, Turabian and MLA Manuals of Style are in effect every bit as much in the South as they are anywhere else in the world. The point to which you are responding addresses what "correct English" should be, not the level at which people of a region live up to the maxims set forth in the aforementioned tomes. The rules for
properly spoken and written English remain universal, with small, almost trivial, deviations. Though it may be true that the words of our language change in meaning and frequency of usage from one region or nation to another, the application does not.
What is being debated here is the degradation of
proper English, and not the informal speech that you point out.
Colloquialisms, as you mention, differ from one location to another, but they have little to no role in formal, proper English. That is the point Bill Cosby is trying to make.
Quote:
Originally posted by cameroncrazy822
Regional dialects and accents are one thing, however, I'm fairly certain that grammatical rules governing correct English are universal for US-Southerners and English speaking foreigners alike.
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edited for grammar :P
Amen.