just. plain. STUPID.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And furthermore, no law firm, at least, will EVER hire someone who learned Ebonics instead of English, because the nuances of the language are important in arguing for one legal principle over another. You close Ebonics speakers to the law and you think that'll do them good?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


What good is accomplished by allowing kids to grow up not being able to speak English properly? While it might assuage your cultural guilt, it actually destroys their lives and makes it impossible for them to find good employment. Why should your little social experiment be allowed to ruin people's futures?

[Theben]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Lets be real here, the big issue with Ebonics is that its spoken by black people. Blacks who speak perfect standard English are still penalized by society plenty as it is.

That's kind of the point of this thread, isn't it? And though blacks who speak perfect English still deal with racism, they don't deal with it as much.

My point is that so far no one has presented a compelling argument to allow Ebonics to be taught in class.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
You know, this whole argument reminds me of that lesser known dialect of the poor, uneducated working class of the southern British Isles to come up around the 6th century. What was it called?

Oh yeah. English.

Come on, guys. You may have the English down, but the history is lacking.

Yeah, and it only took a few centuries for it to reach the level of a full-blown, widely-used, stand-alone language from its progenitor...

[Pyrodrew]

I think Jimmy is just being an amazingly good troll.

Mostly because I don't want to think he's being serious .

[Kaak]

i think jimmy is just trying to prove that no matter how stupid an idea is, someone will back it.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
You know, this whole argument reminds me of that lesser known dialect of the poor, uneducated working class of the southern British Isles to come up around the 6th century. What was it called?

Oh yeah. English.

And every sane man on earth agrees that the rise of English is dire

If the nobles had done their job properly, we wouldn't have to suffer under this atrocious language.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Spiffor

And every sane man on earth agrees that the rise of English is dire

If the nobles had done their job properly, we wouldn't have to suffer under this atrocious language.

You're just jealous that English replaced French as lingua franca in the Western World.

[Spiffor]

As somebody who lives in a country whose language he doesn't master, I fully agree with Boris et al. As I was looking for jobs, because of my language skills, pretty much every job in direct contact with the customer was barred to me. It's not good business if you don't understand what is told to you, or if the customer doesn't figure out what you mean.

I was stuck either with jobs that were related with the languages I speak better (French and English), or with menial jobs. And to me, it's perfectly normal.

If these students are so deeply in Ebonics that they have trouble studying in proper English, then the school is their last opportunity to be exposed to English. If their school speaks in Ebonics, they'll definitely lose touch with proper English. And they'll definitely lose touch with pretty much every job that requires to be fluent in the language (and in our economies based on the service sector, these jobs are many)

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
You may be expecting the bleeding hearts to be like "Oh no", but I'm for it. We'll export American English across the globe and the mother****ers will like it!

British English shall prevail. They are spelled "colour", "theatre" and "manoeuvre", dammit!

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
You oppressor . Next you'll be arguing that people should wear suits in a business setting! Mr. Fashion Genocide! Fascist!

Hmm.

I support English but oppose suits.

What does that make me?

[DeathByTheSword]

Oh Kaak it is:
'This is just plain stupid.' and not some weird slang 'just. plain. STUPID.'

[St Leo]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
You know, this whole argument reminds me of that lesser known dialect of the poor, uneducated working class of the southern British Isles to come up around the 6th century. What was it called?

Oh yeah. English.

Yes, and English was a worthless waste of time for 700 years until Chaucer, and then largely pointless for another 200 years until Shakespeare.

OTOH, hmm.

[St Leo]

Yeah, kaak. How dare you drop the copula? The thread title is an abomination.^-^

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by St Leo

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
You know, this whole argument reminds me of that lesser known dialect of the poor, uneducated working class of the southern British Isles to come up around the 6th century. What was it called?

Oh yeah. English.

Yes, and English was a worthless waste of time for 700 years until Chaucer, and then largely pointless for another 200 years until Shakespeare.

OTOH, hmm.

What a revealingly elitist post from you.

You're saying that a language is pointless and worthless only until someone comes along and makes it popular, regardless of the fact that millions of people used it to communicate? So until Negro Shakespeare comes along we should ignore AAVE?

Ok.

What good is accomplished by allowing kids to grow up not being able to speak English properly?

I told you before, this argument doesn't work. Ebonics is English, its just not in standard form. In all other regards it should be perfectly intelligible to anyone whose first language is English. Nothing prevents a speaker of Ebonics from being well spoken, clear and concise.

"Proper" is not a qualititative term with regards to langage, its just a way classifying some forms as standard and others as non-standard. And what is standard is arbitrary, as are rules of grammar and vocabulary.

That's kind of the point of this thread, isn't it? And though blacks who speak perfect English still deal with racism, they don't deal with it as much.

Good plan, instead of tackling the root of the problem, lets just make blacks as white as possible to bandaide other people's prejudice towards them. Lets send all gays into therapy too.

Basically guys, this is how it works. Ebonics speakers are perfectly well understood by speakers of standard English. So if communication isn't the issue, then whats the problem? The problem is simple, Ebonics speakers are black. If you think its any more complicated than this you're fooling yourself.