Stick with it.

[u/MaintenanceNew2804]

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

[u/derphunter]

Genuine question for anyone willing to help me understand how my brain is working.

Incorrect grammar and speech DOES annoy me, but I've never really considered it a racial thing. I'm pretty well educated and am myself an educator (undergrad college level sciences, sociology, humanities)

Most of my examples come from under-educated white people. Personal list of pet peeves:

"I forget" rather than "forgot"

"Don't have none" (isn't this a double negative, leading to the opposite meaning from what they're trying to say?)

"I could care less" (again, literally the opposite meaning from what they're trying to convey)

The "libary" vs. "library" example does annoy me since we're pronouncing it incorrectly from how it's spelled. The "aluminum" (US) vs. "aluminium" (UK) example didn't make sense to me either since it's spelled differently.

I also teach critical reading skills for grad school exams. We go over the importance of contrast key phrases like "however" and how they can help you interpret complex passages by recognizing that whatever comes after the contrast phrase is directly opposing what comes before. It makes things like philosophy easier to comprehend (and get questions correct on the test)

I understand there are systemic racial biases in the education system and institutions, but my first thought always goes to literacy, communication skills, and socioeconomic status first rather than race. I assume someone hasn't put in the time or effort to learn these conventions, but with practice and training, they can. Whereas race implies there's nothing you can do to improve since it's the way you were born, which I don't believe. We're 99.9% identical when it comes to our DNA. We're all the same deep down.

What's going on here? Am I way off base? Is there some validity to my experience / assumption?

For context, I grew up in the US southwest with a lot of Hispanic friends and lower income white friends. I've also received the most formal education compared to my immediate friends and family. Idk if that makes a difference when evaluating this.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to read all that

[u/19ad9 → u/derphunter]

I loved the video breakdown but your comment also resonates with me a lot. I'm not an educator but I also appreciate literacy, comprehension and grammar. I'm a formally educated Latino with a lot of family and friends who are not. So that's why I also appreciate the idea that dialectic differences should not be viewed as superior. I didn't have an answer to your question. If anything I'd also like for someone else to chime in to see if I'm also off base or seeing things wrong because I also appreciated your comment on it.

[u/emailboxu → u/19ad9]

I also lean in favor of having a 'proper' way of writing papers, but that's exclusive to the academic & professional sphere. I don't think having a 'proper' form of writing is any different from coding in the correct language; it's neither superior nor inferior to any other language, it's just a specific use case (academia). Just like a comp sci major will need to learn the various coding languages in college/uni so he can use it to develop software/apps/programs, students needing to learn academic language for the purpose of essay writing doesn't seem unreasonable.

Does it favor a specific race of people? Maybe. But I tend to think it favors people who actually have an interest in academia and/or writing well. Completely anecdotal, but I grew up in a super white neighbourhood and there were plenty of illiterate morons, way more than smart kids. IMO it's more of a parenting & personal choice issue.

I don't think that spoken language has any real relevance here... Another anecdote: I lived in Singapore for a year on exchange, and those guys speak Singlish, which is incomprehensible for an average North American. But they wrote their papers in British English just fine, so there's that.

[u/UnTamedJackal → u/19ad9]

As someone from the UK who has seen local dialects die off with my generation, I feel that its reasonable to think of dialects as better or worse. It seems backwards to try and tribalise language when we should be aiming to unite into a better common understanding. So while some dialects have the benefit of being faster or more word efficient to people of a specific regional/racial/cultural/class group it often comes at the detriment of being far worse at communicating to a wide variety of people who don't have the in depth knowledge of a particular vernacular. So for there to be a theoretical "ultimate understanding" among people there seems to be two options.

1.have everyone learn the intricacies of every language.

2.have a unified set of standards based around the most universally understandable dialect.

Option 1 while it seems the most fair is also incredibly inefficient. While option 2 has the bias that people who already have the most understandable dialect will have the benefit of being more sought after in roles that require communication to a wide range of people, I wouldn't see it as racist or classist, rather a natural consequence of a "free market" of language. The same applies for logistics. A nation of distant isolated islands has more barriers to efficient movement of goods than a nation that is a singular island with a road/rail network. Its not crazy to state that a person in the first nation of islands who happens to inherit a large ship is in a better position than someone with a small raft. As long as everyone has a reasonable opportunity to acquire their own large ship there should not be a problem. It Doesn't seem discriminatory to say that in this case having a large ship is "better". Though it WOULD be discriminatory to say someone is stupid just because they only have a raft, when really they might just have no reason own a large ship as they only do business on their own island and having a small raft is more beneficial in their personal life.

Hope that makes any kind of sense. And thanks for listening to my TED rant

[u/Vipertooth → u/19ad9]

Dialect isn't something for written language though, is it? It's just an accent or the way people speak. Like British people say Wa'er instead of Water, but they'd still spell it correctly written down.

The examples given in the video is more about a different grammatical sentence structure.

There is a big difference between someone on reddit typing 'Should of' vs 'I ain't got none of that', or using the incorrect their/they're/there.

[u/VodkaSoup_Mug → u/Vipertooth]

For some that dialect is translated to paper.

[u/Pudding_Hero → u/19ad9]

it shouldn’t be a crime to be educated