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To: RegulatorCountry
An inability to speak well will always be a handicap, and anyone who pretends otherwise is no friend to those he or she would keep in ignorance. If a certain dialect or manner of speaking is something that you wish to keep, to use with family and friends, by all means you can keep it for that reason. But, make no mistake, the larger world does not embrace it, and it has nothing to do with skin color.

Exactly. We all need to use two dialects.

The dialect we grew up with and a common "business dialect".

I really enjoy the sound of a deep south black person or anyone from Cajun country, Texan, etc., talking in their native dialect.

I try to slip back into my back woods native Vermonter dialect at the same time to hopefully entertain them as much as they are entertaining me.

On the other hand, I am a hopeless grammar, punctuation and spelling snob.

Unfortunately I also have some weak points in those areas myself.

I prefer to have a fellow stickler correct me when I goof up, rather than just let it go. It helps with the learning process.

We are a nation of varied dialects, I know of at least four different ones in two counties of Vermont, and can tell you what town a proper native speaker is from. These are of course real, 8th generation Vermonters, not the posers who have invaded the once wonderful state.

Hopefully no one will lose their unique ways of speaking and writing, but add to their abilities proper English for the times when it is needed.

46 posted on 04/23/2016 7:14:57 PM PDT by Mogger (Independence, better fuel economy and performance with American made synthetic oil.)
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To: Mogger

I’ve always enjoyed hearing regional accents, and have something of an ear for them. If I’m in a place for a week, I start unconsciously picking it up. In the region of NC where I grew up, you could usually tell where somebody grew up, down to the county at least. But, there was a mixed bag of settlers in the colonial era that was the source of that. To the west, Scotch-Irish led to the mountain twang of Appalachia. Due east, a lot of plantations and an accent that would sound at home in Mississippi. To the southeast, Quakers. Directly south, German. Where I was, English, mostly from the southwest of England originally. Quite a patchwork, and there were distinct speech patterns stemming from that two centuries later. Not so much anymore, though.


47 posted on 04/23/2016 7:23:47 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Mogger

On the other hand, I am a hopeless grammar, punctuation and spelling snob.

Unfortunately I also have some weak points in those areas myself.

**************************************************************

You just described me, especially your second remark.

Pet peeve - “infer/imply”. I wish everybody knew the difference.

Over used word, “implode”. Doesn’t anything “explode” anymore?

My special weakness is commas, when and when not to use them. I was taught that when conjunctions are used, commas are not.

True story:

Back in the 70s, Chicago teachers were on strike. I was watching a reporter talking to people on the picket line. He asked one woman, “What do you do at the school”?

I’m not making this up, she replied, “I teaches English”.


54 posted on 04/23/2016 8:56:46 PM PDT by Graybeard58
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