4 ms·
Indeed. But sadly, its very much non-obvious to an overlarge proportion of the population. In fact, plenty of nonexperts think it's obviously not the case. I r
by AimHere 10y ago
Indeed. But sadly, its very much non-obvious to an overlarge proportion of the population.
In fact, plenty of nonexperts think it's obviously not the case. I reckon this is because people speak language throughout their lives and therefore believe themselves to be experts, and by extension, any linguistic judgments they make (which almost always line up with some old fashioned racial/regional/class- or even gender-based bigotry) are facts. So it goes.
- ebfbsf 10y agoExcept AAVE gets this treatment much, much more heavily. It's racism plain and simple. Every time this topic comes up on HN the response is totally predictable.
- AimHere 10y agoSure. That's probably a comment on the level of racism against African Americans (and the distinctness of the dialect) compared to the other forms of bigotry out there.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago> I reckon this is because people speak language throughout their lives and therefore believe themselves to be experts, and by extension, any linguistic judgments they make (which almost always line up with some old fashioned racial/regional/class- or even gender-based bigotry) are facts. It's common about everything people tend to do regularly. It's like many are missing the distinction between being good at doing something and being good at the meta-level, being good at reasoning about that something. One helps with the others, but they're distinct skills. Sure, most people are experts in communicating using a language, but they're no more experts of the language itself than a person digging ditches their whole life is automatically a shovel expert or a civil engineer. (Similarly, the time when most programmers could be called "computer experts" are long gone.)