rat

As someone who lives in what's considered the "Deep South" (Texas), and has spent time in several of the surrounding states (Louisiana, Arkansas, and a couple others) as well as having lived in Chicago for 7 years, I can say that there are places everywhere I've been where people spoke such a mangled form of English that I could barely understand them.

For those of you who have seen My Cousin Vinny please recall the "two yutes" scene. In Bahstahn, it's cah pahk and bah, not car park and bar. In Texas it's "y'all git on inside 'fore I have t' lay int' y'all." I have been to some extremely "backwoods" parts of this fine state, and there are people that even I, as a native Texan, have trouble understanding unless I listen extremely closely.

Additionally, there's a guy at the local bar from London, and when he's in his pints and gets going, Ed is barely intelligible to me. I've been around quite a few Englishmen, as well as conversed with many via online mediums, and British English, Irish English, Scottish English, and American English are four very different languages when it comes to syntax, grammar, spelling and idiomatic expressions.

There is NO single English lexicon. However, BEV (Black English Vernacular) is simply a bastardization of the language to the point of being unintelligible to anyone who isn't immersed in it.


Regarding Cosby's statements, I couldn't agree more with both his words and his choice of venue to share them. This is a man who's spent his life becoming an educated and respected man, has held his doctorate for over 25 years in (of all things, GASP!) Education, and may just have some knowledge about the conditions of lower-middle class black americans when it comes to their economic/educational status in this nation.

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