Dialects of English

You'll remember I wrote a post about the insistence on only one dialect of English being "real," or an actual language; and how this foible is because Americans love to have what they consider legitimate reasons for bigotry.

Here's evidence that this is an actual problem. White Americans -- especially conservative White Americans -- are either unable or unwilling to understand AAVE in courtroom settings, which is contributing to unequal justice under the law. 

Court reporters have to be able to transcribe what is being said in a courtroom with at least 95 percent accuracy. According to this article, court reporters tested on AAVE can only transcribe what is being said with less that 83% accuracy. 

In 31 percent of the 2,241 transcriptions, researchers found, the court reporters’ errors changed the content of what the speaker was saying, misinterpreting either who was involved, what was happening, when it happened, and/or where it happened.

Further, juries either can't or claim they can't understand what black witnesses are saying in court.

As the article puts it, there's a real lack of "willingness" to understand AAVE.

This might be an actual lack of comprehension, of course. When I taught World Lit, I would often teach Frederick Douglass's Narrative of a Life, which is written in perfect SAE of the time. That dialect was often well above the literacy level of my students, who could often barely read what they called "modern" English (English written since the year 2000). Still, they never complained they couldn't understand what Douglass was saying (even when it was clear they could not). 

I would also give them half a dozen narratives from the WPA slave narrative collections in the Federal Library. The WPA collectors deliberately transcribed these narratives in the language, the dialect, spoken by the former slaves -- in AAVE, in other words, from the 1930s. (There's a pdf collection here.)

When I would assign these, some of my students (I won't say conservative, although they probably were, being this was a freshman class in Arkansas; they were definitely white kids) would insist they "couldn't" read the narratives. "They're not in English," they would insist.

Mind you, these are Arkansas kids. Most of them grew up speaking Southern English, which has its roots in AAVE. I'm not saying they were all liars. At least one of them I know for a fact just wasn't too bright. They could barely read SAE written in the 21st century, so maybe they actually couldn't understand this text (a sample):

I wuz 'borned in Orange County and I belonged ter Mr. Gilbert Gregg near Hillsboro. I doan know nothin' bout my mammy an daddy, but I had a brother Jim who wuz sold ter dress young missus fer her weddin. De tree am still standin what I set under an' watch ' em sell Jim. I set dar ant I cry an' cry,  specially when dey puts de chain on him an carries him off, an' I ain't neber felt so lonesome in my whole life. I ain't neber hyar from Jim since an' I wonder now sometimes if'en he's still livin.

But maybe they and the other students who complained were just not willing to understand what they saw as "not English." Maybe their point was Black people who couldn't speak in the standard English of the time had no right to be heard.

I also remember a smart (white, conservative) kid, very likeable, from my History of the English Language class who wrote, very nicely, in my end of the semester evaluation that as much as he realized I was educated and intelligent, I was wrong when I taught in the class that different dialects of English were just that, different dialects. Speaking proper English, he said, was moral issue. 

Speaking anything but standard English, that implies, is immoral. Is a sin.

You can see why this might be a problem when people who don't speak SAE show up in court seeking justice. (It's not just Black people who don't speak SAE, and of course some Black Americans do speak SAE. That's not the point here.) When we speak about systemic injustice, this is what we mean. This injustice is baked into the system, and it is approved of and enforced by a sizable percentage of our population, some of whom are lawyers, some of whom sit on juries, and many, many, many of whom are police officers. 

Or ICE agents, but probably that's less important, since ICE agents aren't really interested in what anyone has to say, in SAE or AAVE or the dialect of the Intermountain West or whatever.

My kid is Flying Home

So far no trouble with TSA or ICE in the airport, but then they both pass as white cis males, so.

We've been taking care of Rosen, whom Dr Skull loves so much he wants to adopt her. But Jasper is afraid of her, so much so that she won't go in the room where the litter box is. (They've had two fights so far, both of which Jasper lost.) 

So unless I figure out a place to put a second litter box, that's probably not a solution.

Also, the kids love Rosen and don't really want to give her up. It's too bad, because Rosen is a great cat and she does indeed really love Dr Skull, who misses Junti (who was his cat) terribly.

Dr Skull with Rosen

Rereading Books

Apparently some people think you should never re-read books, because, and I am summarizing, there are so many books out there to read, why would you ever waste time re-reading?

I do read a lot of new (or new to me) books, but for me one of the pleasures of reading is re-reading. I especially like to reread a book that I haven't read in years. It's kind of like parallax vision, maybe? I remember what I thought or how I understood a book when I was 20 or 30; how will I see or understand the same book now? I'm a different person now, so I understand the book/see the book differently.

I'd go so far as to say you haven't really understood a book if you haven't read it more than once. This is especially true for me, I think, because I read really fast (though I don't skim unless the book is terrible and I'm trying to see if it's worth finishing). When I'm gulping down a book because I want to know what happens, I don't always spend a lot of time thinking about what's happening. Re-reading lets me do that.

I also like to reread a book I've read maybe a dozen times. It's like watching your favorite movie or listening to a favorite song. I enjoy the beats and the scenes because I know them so well.

Recently I've discovered the joy of listening to a book that I've read a dozen times. The audiobook of Nobody's Fool, for example -- listening to that was such a different experience from reading it. Same for Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy.

What about y'all? Do you re-read?

Spotted on Tumblr

If y'all aren't on Tumblr, by the way, you are missing out. It's the internet the way it was meant to be.

ANYWAY.

A German Tumblrist asks why Americans are so obsessed over "whether something is a word." Why are we like this, they want to know. They're talking about how certain speakers of American English get angry when a dictionary includes words like 'ain't' or 'irregardless.' Why? Why? they demand. Those aren't real words!

As a professor of the language, I have the answer to this question: It's because Americans love any excuse at all to be a bigot. 

I used to teach History of the English Language as well as English Grammar and one of the things I had to teach my students was that their "correct" English was a dialect of English, like any other dialect of English. It wasn't "better" than African American Vernacular English, or Bronx English, or Mississippi English, or working class East Coast English.

That is to say, Standard American English (what they counted as 'correct' English) does not communicate its meaning any better than, say, AAVE. In fact, in some ways, SAE communicates less well -- AAVE is really good at communicating aspect with its verbs, for example, which SAE mostly ignores. 

(I remember when I was first studying Greek. Greek verbs also pay a lot of attention to aspect, and my entire class could not wrap their heads about what this mean -- for us, 'perfect' was just another sort of  past tense, and what even was aorist? Raised speaking SAE, this was a concept we had real trouble grasping.)

Why then do so many people believe that SAE is "real" and everything else is 'slang' or ignorant or not even actually English? 

Because it lets them feel superior. It allows them to look down on some group -- to be bigoted in a way that feels approved of by their culture.

Let me tell you, I too used to wince when someone said something like, "I have already ate," or "Mom took Tim and I to the state fair last week." That was before I actually knew something about how language works. Now I find these regional difference -- like "Anymore you can't find eggs for less than ten dollars a dozen" -- fascinating.

Anyway! My point, and I do have one, is that anything which communicates meaning is language. For example, I love saying things like "irregardless" and "ain't" and "we might could finish this tomorrow," just to jar people a bit.

"Ain't?" they will exclaim. "Irregardless? Those aren't words!"

"But you know what it means," I point out. "If I say, I ain't eating no more pie, you know exactly what I mean, irregardless of what you claim."

And they do. So why does this upset them, someone with a PhD who says irregardless? 

It's cognitive dissonance. They know I'm educated, they know they can't treat me like trash, and what does that mean about this thing they have been counting on, that their ability to speak SAE means they're better than people who say things like "I seen her at Walmart"?

It's like people who think being an American makes them better than people in other places. When they find out that people in other places actually have good lives, and are good people, some of them better lives than many Americans in fact, cognitive dissonance. It was the one way they could feel superior. Now what do they have?

See also people who think that being a certain religion, or having a certain skin color, or being a certain gender makes them 'better.' When anyone suggests otherwise -- that tantrum they throw, that's cognitive dissonance. If they don't have this way of being superior to other people, then what do they have?

I mean, they could accept that being superior to other people isn't something they need, or even should want, but it takes a great deal more enlightenment than most of them will ever have to come to that realization.

Headaches Again

 As I think I mentioned, I pretty much always have a headache. Usually it's a low-grade ache around my temples or behind my eyes. But -- as now -- when the weather is changing, I have a first-class banging headache that makes me want to lie in bed and whimper. Nothing really helps. Sometimes a shower does. But not usually.

I have taken Motrin and a Tylenol. We'll see how it goes.

Retirement

Dr Skull and I had a lovely outing last night -- we ate at one of our favorite restaurants and then went to the bookstore and bought more books. We discussed traveling to various cities, which he wants to do and I am less eager about. As y'all know, my favorite thing to do is stay home, read books, and write books.

A day trip to Tulsa I could probably manage. 

Though I am slightly jealous of what the kids are doing in Maryland -- day before yesterday they went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and yesterday they went to the Smithsonian zoo. I think today they are driving to Philly to visit an art museum.

Spring Break

This town is deserted during Spring Break, which I have to admit I'm enjoying. No lines at the grocery store. No traffic on the roads. There are fewer dogs at the dog park, which I'll admit is a drawback.

Dr Skull and I are having our long-delayed anniversary dinner at the Southern Food Company this evening, that's our celebration for the Break.

The kid and his husband are having a great time in Maryland, and Dr Skull has decided to steal their cat. "This is my cat," he keeps saying. "I'm not giving her back."

Rosen, the Cat in Question

Babysitting the Grandcat

 There are actually two grandcats, but they're not getting along, so one is staying with us

and the other I visit every day.

The kids are in Maryland, visiting their friends who live there. They'll make a sidetrip to Philly. I'm hoping they don't get caught up in all this lunacy with Trump and the airports.

Whaaaat!

Okay, I'm interested.

It doesn't seem entirely accurate, since Odysseus could honestly have given a fuck about his men, but other than that it looks epic. I might even see it in the theater. 

UGH

It was 72 degrees when I took the dog to the dog park at 7:30 a.m. High of 90 is predicted today.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler, but I'm already in my dread-summer mode.

Brought to you by Global-Climate-Change-is-just-a-Myth.

The Pitt and ICE

If you're not watching the Pitt, we're already into Season Two. This is a show in which each season takes place in a single day -- Season Two is the fourth of July. Every episode is one hour in that day.

There had already been a nod toward Trump's brutal immigration policy, with a young Haitian woman who has custody of her ten year old brother. The parents, seized by ICE at their immigration hearing, had been deported. The kid blew two of his fingers off off playing with fireworks with other kids in their housing complex. "Wouldn't [the kid] be better off with his parents?" a clueless first-year student asks.

July is when you want to avoid hospitals, FYI. It's when all the new students, doctors, and residents start their year.

Anyway, on this week's episode, Thursday night, ICE agents showed up dragging a tiny woman in plastic cuffs. She 'fell down the stairs,' they claimed, and injured her shoulder. The ICE agents were huge men in masks, barking orders and refusing the leave the woman alone with the doctors. Eventually, abruptly, they decided to drag the woman out before her treatment was complete, and when a nurse, Jesse, tries to intervene, they tackle him, cuff him, and drag him away too.

It was extremely upsetting, and -- according to viewers from Minnesota -- extremely accurate.

As you can imagine, MAGA cultists are crying and screaming about the episode, which was filmed months ago, way before Minnesota kicked off. I doubt any of those throwing tantrums actually watch the Pitt, which is really for people who are smarter than most MAGAs. (I mean, who isn't smarter than a Trump supporter at this point?) But they're offended and this is treason and also propaganda.

Weirdo losers. Let's hope they shut up and faded into rightful obscurity post-Midterms.

ETA: See also this.

Spring Arrives

Spring is arriving in Fayetteville just in time for Spring Break. All the flowering trees are flowering; all the other trees are putting out bright green leaves. The grass is coming up silky and thick and green as the leaves.

Today we're expecting a high of 90, which is a record high for this date. Same tomorrow. After that, it might cool off (like, highs in the 70s) for a little while.

The kid and his husband are flying to Maryland to visit friends there. I'm babysitting one of my grandcats while they're gone. 

What are my plans for Spring Break? I'm going to write a lot and read a lot and take the dog to the dog park. Maybe Dr Skull and I will have lunch at a fancy restaurant one day.

I'm living in paradise.

Evangelical Cultists and Pedophilia

Another Duggar son has been arrested for sexually assaulting a child.

At some point, we have to recognize that Christian Cultists are a true danger to children and act accordingly.

ETA: Yes, this is slightly ironic. It's what Christian Cultists say whenever someone even tangentially related to or involved with a trans person commits a crime. Though it is worth noting that far more "Christians" commit crimes, sexually assault children, and shoot people to death than anyone trans or trans-adjacent does. Also more white cis men. 

The advice, by the way, from the Christian Cult on how to stop your sons from sexually assaulting their siblings and other small children? Don't let boys change diapers, make sure your small children don't run around naked after their baths, and teach your tiny daughters how to wear dresses without being 'immodest.' These are children under the age of three, by the way. How *do* we keep young men from sexually assaulting infants? It's a puzzler.

My Actual Birthday

It's today! I can't believe how old I am. Or rather, I can't believe how young being 66 seems. I remember at 16 thinking 33 was old. Ha!

Anyway, here is an update on what being old is like:

Every day, something new aches. Right now it's the tendon I bruised during the snow storm and also my spine. ("My spiiiine!" I cry often.) A week ago it was my hip, after I slept on it a little too long one night. Sleeping! Sleeping gives me injuries now.

I wake up early now. Not at five a.m. as I was when we first moved here, but I'm up and dressed by 7:30 most days. Partly this is the dog, who begins demanding his walk around 7:00. But also it's because I'm in bed by 9:30 or ten most nights. Me! Who seldom managed to sleep before 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.!

I'm eating a lot more cake than I used to. I'm sure this isn't good for me, but on the other hand, who's going to stop me?

I spend a lot of time in doctor's offices. Mostly this is for Dr Skull's appointments, but some are also for me.

I take exercises as seriously as I did when I was 30, when I ran a couple miles every day and also took my dog for a three mile walk most days. Some of my aches arise from this, but most are because I'm ooooold.

I love being retired. Day after day with nothing planned. I lie on the couch and read books. I take the dog for at least two walks a day. I go to the library. I write whenever and as much as I like. I never have to teach composition again. There's plenty of time to do laundry and the dishes. (It's amazing how much less annoying dishes and the laundry are when you aren't exhausted and also you have plenty of time.)

I am extremely glad I don't have to depend solely on my social security. Medicare, on the other hand, is wonderful. I got a lengthy statement in the mail yesterday for all of Dr Skull's home health care, and the big news was on page one: "Amount you may owe: $0.00."

Granted, this is only because we can afford to pay for Part B and Part G, but still.

I'm liking being 66 a lot, I guess is the conclusion here. May it long continue.

He just wants to sit in my lap all day long, is that so much to ask?

It's My Birthday

 Well, not until tomorrow. But we had a party yesterday, with order-in Italian and this:

A leaning-tower of carrot cake, which I made my own self, since Dr Skull cannot make cakes at the moment. I am not a fifth-generation baker, as you can probably tell. Still, it was tasty. The cream cheese frosting was especially good.

The kid and his husband and one of their grad school friends came over; also Uncle Charger. We had a good time. Next week is the kid's spring break and he and his husband are flying off to Maryland to visit friends. Maryland is where the kid plans to move if the situation does not improve in Arkansas.

The kid painted this for my birthday:

Jasper and my little cat Junti, may her memory be a blessing, cuddling together for once.

It was 20 degrees and wimdy when I took the dog to the park this morning. There were two big dogs there so he had someone to run with.