From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 19:34:56 -0800 (PST)
To: "Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com>
Subject: Re: Ebonics
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.961221144523.595B-100000@gak.voicenet.com>
Message-ID: <32BCA854.5FF7@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Mark M. wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Dec 1996, Mark Rosen wrote:
> > There are several problems with your argument:[snippo]
> > * You are completely forgetting the other "non-English" group in America;
> > the so-called White Trash or heavy Southern accents, which are violate just
> > as many prissy and stuck up rules of grammar as Ebonics
> > * You don't have to speak ebonics. You also don't have to speak with a
> > Southern twang (or whatever the politically correct name for that is)

Just saying someone has a Southern "accent" is prejudicial and ignorant.
It's true that anyone, Southern or otherwise, can slur words so they're
not clear, but on averages, Southerners who speak clearly with their
native inflections and pronunciations are easier to understand than your
typical Yankees, whose speech is generally thin, nasal and rather pinched-
sounding.

People talked about hate in the South in the 1960's.  What a crock.
Apartheid, sure, no doubt about that.  But hate, well, I grew up in
the North and I lived for a few years in the deep South, and the people
in the South don't hate like the Yankees do, on average.

If you want to see how hate works, look how the big-media organizations
have descended on Southern radio and TV and have been telling them that
they speak wrongly, and that Southern "accents" are something to be
ashamed of.

There's a story about the Confederate officer who, following the War For
Southern Independence (not a true Civil War BTW), walked up the steps of
the veterans' club and saw a Union man sitting with a tin cup, looking
absolutely miserable with all sorts of injuries, etc.  The Southern man
tossed a dollar into the cup, at which point the astonished Union soldier
exclaimed "thank you, sir".  The next week at the club, the same thing
happened, and the soldier asked "Excuse me sir, but why would a Southern
officer such as yourself be showing so much sympathy to a Union man like
myself?"  To which the Southern officer replied "Actually it's not that,
it's just that you're the first Yankee I've seen that's been shot up
to my specifications".