The Glade 4.0

More like pushing a giant boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down.

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Of course you will miss from time to time, which is why you sometimes need to clarify.



Nope. I clarified to the best of my ability for pages and pages. So, you are wrong again.

Lex:

I said nothing about complexity. I mentioned a particular facet of two dialects in comparison with each other.

Aizle:

Good deduction. So, why is it we consider one of the following statements ignorant (at best) and stupid (as a general rule)?



In fact, which one of those statements is more specific?

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In my mind they are the same as far as being specific. Both indicate where she went, and that it happened in the past.

Speaking for myself, the only thing I would assume from the first statement is they are uneducated.

Aizle:

The second statement is actually less specific than the first. In African American Vernacular English (Ebonics), there are variances in the past-tense verb structure. The statement, "She done went to the store," is temporally specific and indicates a very recent, but past event. "She went to the store," however, merely indicates prior to now.

And why would you assume the first statement indicates a lack of education?

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She done gone to the store indicates that the action is completed. It's a past perfect construction, if one were to deconstruct that dialect more rigorously than most who speak it subconsciously probably do.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

"She done went to the store" is not the same as the example.

Only because most people who are highly educated don't speak like that. Not saying there aren't exceptions, but it would be an assumption I'd have until additional data changed my opinion.

Aizle:

Eh, I made a typo. It happens.

That said, Ebonics doesn't conform to your expectations of "educated" speech. Why is that? What's the dividing line? What creates your expectation of educated speech? Ebonics is verbally more precise and regular than American Edited English. It is, structurally speaking, a more comprehensive dialect than what you expect. The logic is more uniform; the rules less subject to exceptions.

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Apparently, I'm not exposed to Ebonics enough, and need to take a class.

As for education.. see, this is like law, right? Create a bunch of exceptions and grandfathered stuff to make a barrier to entry, and you make yourself seem educated? English is considered more educated because it requires you to know all the irregularities!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

No worries, just making sure I wasn't missing something.

I'm basing those expectations on my understanding of the current educational practices in the majority of the US. Obviously I'm making other assumptions here as well, like the person speaking is living in the US, probably raised here, etc.

Aizle:

Ok, and what's the dividing line between the two as far as "educated" or "not educated" based on initial exposure?

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I don't understand the question. You mean where is the line drawn between educated and uneducated?

Aizle:

"Ebonics" and "American Edited English".

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Doesn't She done went to the store have two verbs? Went is the action whereas she didn't "do" anything?

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Well if I'm understanding the question correctly, I would say that neither is an absolute indicator of being educated or not. As I already said, I would make an assumption that someone speaking "Ebonics" was uneducated, for the reasons I've already stated. I would not, however assume that someone speaking "American Edited English" was educated, unless their particular use of it hinted at it.

For example, even prior to learning any of your education and work background, it was obvious that you were fairly educated because of how you use language.

As with everything, use of language is just a data point.

In English, we call it a helping verb. An easy example is will. "I will run to the park today." Will and run are both verbs individually, but their combined construction is the future tense of "to run."

Other common English examples are the various forms of the verbs "to be" and "to have."

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Aizle:

Really? How I use language indicates education? Nothing in my speech is particularly academic or beyond normal idiom. In fact, it generally lacks idiom regardless of the language I am speaking or writing. And that's a curious thing in itself: what does the lack of idiom say about sometimes speech? What data points are you compiling? Dialect isn't exactly binary, so why would or does it indicate anything about anyone?

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Sure, use of language can infer education. And depending on the post, some of your speech here is very academic. Others not as much, but all of it is fairly meticulous. It has been my experience that those who have a very good handle on language are also typically educated beyond the high school level.

Idioms can sometimes be indicative of something, depending on how common the idiom is. I usually find that lack of idiom is also related to someone who is educated, as it generally takes some concious thought (or lots of practice) to not use idioms regularly.

Dialect doesn't really indicate anything necessarily, other than a location that someone is from, which perhaps provides insight into what their social environment may have been like growing up.

As for what data points I'm compiling, that's a hard question for me to answer. It really depends on the situation. Here on the forums, all I really have to go on are how someone posts (language, phrasing, punctuation, spelling, specific content), profile information and history of posts. In real life, obviously there are many more visual and vocal cues that one can add to the mix. Posture, vocal inflection, body language, dress, etc.

Oh, come on, Khross. I get what you are saying, but they ain't nobody nowheres that done say "idiom" dat ain't gone to school.

Truth.

I concur. Khross I would assume that the group of people you associate (hang) with may toss around words such as idiom but far and away it is rather uncommon word in most social-circles' lexicons.

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I agree. No one I work with in the military says "idiom" or would know what it means. I've liked to read since I was young, so I picked up more words, but I'm still mostly uneducated by my estimate. People tend to assume a lot from how one speaks.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I'd be willing to bet, though, that you have at least a few that don't like it when you use idioms because "Big sarge be dissin' on me."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Educated = having a large vocabulary

No it means having a different vocabulary. There are tons of slang phrases that are used by less educated demographics that I imagine would offset the "big fancy book-learning words" utilized by more educated members of society.

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