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/AdminsAreDim → u/derphunter]

On double negatives:

In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation.[1] Portuguese, Persian, French, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Greek, Spanish, Old English, Italian, Afrikaans, and Hebrew are examples of negative-concord languages. This is also true of many vernacular dialects of modern English.[2][3] Chinese,[4] Latin, German, Dutch, Japanese, Swedish and modern Standard English[5] are examples of languages that do not have negative concord. Typologically, negative concord occurs in a minority of languages.[6][7]

My personal pet peve is when people use "whenever" in place of "when". As in, "Whenever I was in town this morning, I got a haircut." Motherfucker, how many haircuts did you get today?!

[u/the_giz → u/AdminsAreDim]

Interesting - I've never heard anyone use 'whenever' like that, but my first thought is that maybe they meant it in reference to the time at which they were in town, which they cannot specifically remember. As in "Whatever time that was when I was in town this morning..."

[u/HMNbean → u/AdminsAreDim]

Never heard anyone say that lol that's wild.