languages (Ebonics)

From: Gary Hildebrand <ghldbrd_at_ccp.com>
Date: Fri Mar 10 18:59:25 2000

Hello Bill

On 10-Mar-00, you wrote:

>> Quite true, but ultimately irrevalent. Were, examples aside, your
>> linguistics courses taught in BEV or Standard English? Standard is
>> generally a more effective means of data interchange. Linguists can be
>> compared to the people who check the plumbing, writers are the ones that
>> flush. We're looking at things from a number of different perspectives
here.
>> The linguist has a purely mechanical interpretation, others a
sociological
>> bias, or an artistic one. We have to be careful we don't miss each
>> others' points, because we all have very differing backgrounds. I don't
>> have a problem with dialect, it is as surely interesting as it is
>> non-standar - and standardisation is what makes things run.
>>
>> I use dialect in some of my writing, but there are certainly purposes and

>> occasions where it is inappropriate. In those, I would use standard
>> English. Here in New England we speak differently, although the
>> dialect is not as extreme as BEV, an is mostly pronunciational. Notice
>> how media insists on a standard pronunciation, that's why all our local
>> tv new readers sound like foreigners. It's really amusing to hear them
>> try to say Quonnochontaug for the first time.
>>
>
> In New Jersey watch 'em with Manalapan or Piscataway or Parsippany...
> or Ho-Ho-Kus...
> Those good old Indian names screw up those migrant newsreaders real
> quick.
>
>
> Bill
> ex-Print and Radio News person turned computer geek

I'm an ex-broadcaster from the hinterlands of Montana, where we have our
oddities too. Wilbaux (wee-bo) is named after a French rancher, Rapelje
(Rap-el-jay) was where my mother went to high school, and White Sulphur
Springs is the county seat of Meagher (Mahr) county. The county was named
for an Irishman, Thomas Francis Meagher, whose statue sits in front ot the
state Capitol building in Helena (Hell-n-ah). I've even heard Havre
(have-ur) prounounced as Harvey. Even Butte gets messed up . . .

There's exceptions everywhere you go I guess.

Gary Hildebrand
St. Joseph, Missouri (Miz-ur-e, not Miz-ur-ah)
Received on Fri Mar 10 2000 - 18:59:25 GMT