4 ms·

> Listened to any native English speakers lately? At least in the US, the native speakers mangle the language to a horrible extent. That's literally impossible

> Listened to any native English speakers lately? At least in the US, the native speakers mangle the language to a horrible extent. That's literally impossible. Please don't confuse your classism for linguistics.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jimbob45 6y ago
He’s right though. Who vs whom is one example that no one tends to get right. Ain’t is commonly misused, even as slang. Done vs have is epidemic within Ebonics.
- plorkyeran 6y ago
  "Correct" is defined by what native speakers do.
- samatman 6y ago
  When the rules in the rule book are used as a cudgel to beat on native speakers of a language, it is the rules, and especially those using the rules in that way, which are wrong. English has prestige dialects which conserve certain features, and others which are low status and don't. A phrase like "I done been doin it!" is grammatically regular, in a dialect of the language which you don't speak; it isn't the same thing as the mistakes a non-native speaker will make, at all, and you shouldn't treat it like it is.
- torstenvl 6y ago
  > Who vs whom is one example... of a distinction that exists in only the formal written register of less than a handful of English prestige dialects. It is not wrong to say "Who did you learn this nonsense from?" It is just not formal written Standard American English. Your insistence that one native speaker's dialect is somehow "more right" than another's is not a measure of someone's linguistic competence, it's a social value judgment with classist and racist overtones. Maybe if you spent some time studying AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and other dialects, you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it as "ebonics."
raverbashing 6y ago
I see what you're getting at, but I still disagree. Because it's not only about classisism it's about not giving a f! A non-native can communicate better than a native in several occasions.
- yongjik 6y ago
  Grammar is, by definition, what native speakers get right when they don't give a fuck.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Descriptivism x Prescriptivism, the thing someone is getting wrong today was something that someone "got right" before Yes grammar deviations from the norm "are right" if they are productive and if they are understood in a collective manner. This is different from someone who speaks with an ininteligible pronunciation
bsder 6y ago
Subject/verb agreement is regularly mangled. A vs an is regularly hosed up. Run-on sentences and clauses are all over the map. I can go on and on. This is hilarious when two halves of a family come together and can't understand one another. It's not so hilarious when their children can't read certain books and can't spell for crap because their pronunciation is terrible.
- stan_rogers 6y ago
  "A" vs "an" depends entirely on whether you consider the glottal stop to be a consonant. "A" before a vowel is only wrong if it's elided into the following word.
iso8859-1 6y ago
What about people who mix, e.g. Spanish and English? Is that English too? How many Spanish words does one have to use before it stops being English? Surely there must be a limit.
- mbrubeck 6y ago
  English is a Germanic language, but about 60% of words used by English speakers today were imported from French and Latin, mostly after the Norman conquest of England. So by this standard, it stopped being English hundreds of years ago.
hnaccy 6y ago
If we're taking descriptivist approach wouldn't it also apply to ESL speakers? There is probably many more Indian english speakers than AAVE speakers so wouldn't any differences not be mistakes?
- p1necone 6y ago
  Yes, Indian english is another dialect of english that is just as "correct" as any other dialect of english.
- torstenvl 6y ago
  There are only about a quarter million native Indian English speakers, according to Wikipedia. Certainly, a native Indian English speaker does not make errors (though they may make mistakes) in Indian English. That doesn't necessarily mean that a native Indian English speaker and a native Standard American English will have perfect mutual intelligibility.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jimbob45 6y ago

He’s right though. Who vs whom is one example that no one tends to get right. Ain’t is commonly misused, even as slang. Done vs have is epidemic within Ebonics.

plorkyeran 6y ago
"Correct" is defined by what native speakers do.
samatman 6y ago
When the rules in the rule book are used as a cudgel to beat on native speakers of a language, it is the rules, and especially those using the rules in that way, which are wrong. English has prestige dialects which conserve certain features, and others which are low status and don't. A phrase like "I done been doin it!" is grammatically regular, in a dialect of the language which you don't speak; it isn't the same thing as the mistakes a non-native speaker will make, at all, and you shouldn't treat it like it is.
torstenvl 6y ago
> Who vs whom is one example... of a distinction that exists in only the formal written register of less than a handful of English prestige dialects. It is not wrong to say "Who did you learn this nonsense from?" It is just not formal written Standard American English. Your insistence that one native speaker's dialect is somehow "more right" than another's is not a measure of someone's linguistic competence, it's a social value judgment with classist and racist overtones. Maybe if you spent some time studying AAVE (African American Vernacular English) and other dialects, you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it as "ebonics."

raverbashing 6y ago

I see what you're getting at, but I still disagree. Because it's not only about classisism it's about not giving a f! A non-native can communicate better than a native in several occasions.

yongjik 6y ago
Grammar is, by definition, what native speakers get right when they don't give a fuck.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Descriptivism x Prescriptivism, the thing someone is getting wrong today was something that someone "got right" before Yes grammar deviations from the norm "are right" if they are productive and if they are understood in a collective manner. This is different from someone who speaks with an ininteligible pronunciation

bsder 6y ago

Subject/verb agreement is regularly mangled. A vs an is regularly hosed up. Run-on sentences and clauses are all over the map. I can go on and on. This is hilarious when two halves of a family come together and can't understand one another. It's not so hilarious when their children can't read certain books and can't spell for crap because their pronunciation is terrible.

stan_rogers 6y ago
"A" vs "an" depends entirely on whether you consider the glottal stop to be a consonant. "A" before a vowel is only wrong if it's elided into the following word.

iso8859-1 6y ago

What about people who mix, e.g. Spanish and English? Is that English too? How many Spanish words does one have to use before it stops being English? Surely there must be a limit.

mbrubeck 6y ago
English is a Germanic language, but about 60% of words used by English speakers today were imported from French and Latin, mostly after the Norman conquest of England. So by this standard, it stopped being English hundreds of years ago.

hnaccy 6y ago

If we're taking descriptivist approach wouldn't it also apply to ESL speakers? There is probably many more Indian english speakers than AAVE speakers so wouldn't any differences not be mistakes?

p1necone 6y ago
Yes, Indian english is another dialect of english that is just as "correct" as any other dialect of english.
torstenvl 6y ago
There are only about a quarter million native Indian English speakers, according to Wikipedia. Certainly, a native Indian English speaker does not make errors (though they may make mistakes) in Indian English. That doesn't necessarily mean that a native Indian English speaker and a native Standard American English will have perfect mutual intelligibility.