Republicans...'assault the English language'...

[handmade34]

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/republicans-feel-obligated-to-assault-the-english-language-with-terrible-grammar-in-order-to-show-that-theyre-true-conservatives-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3310

The conservative movement in the United States used to pride itself on having intellectuals like George Will and the late National Review founder William F. Buckley, who spoke with a posh Mid-Atlantic accent that sounded quasi-British. But these days, many right-wing politicians and media figures champion a certain anti-intellectualism —and journalist Christian Schneider, in an article for the conservative website The Bulwark, notes that some Republicans go out of their way to butcher the English language even if they have Ivy League educations.
One example, Schneider notes, is referring to the Democratic Party as “the Democrat Party.” And Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is among the offenders: the Missouri senator, Schneider writes, “fancies himself a salt-of-the-earth Midwesterner who doesn’t truck with fancy elites” — even though he attended Yale Law School.

“Saying ‘Democrat’ instead of ‘Democratic’ has become a shibboleth — a verbal handshake to signal that you’re on Team Red Hat,” Schneider explains. “It’s about as annoying as people rolling their r’s when ordering a burrito to prove they once vacationed in Cozumel. But whatever. Triggering Democrats has become so important to Republicans that they’re willing to assault the English language if the people who like good grammar are the bad guys.”...….

[Aristus]

1. OTOH, I am a liberal Democrat living in the Pacific Northwest who can slip into his original

Texas twang when someone stupid say something stupid within earshot.


I twang up a storm when someone's being a shit-fer-brains...

[handmade34]

5. bet you can...

though, your story is the difference between dialect/accent and assholishness… Republicans intentionally using improper grammar

[Aristus]

6. I always find it funny that I use an accent often equated with poor intellect

when responding to something stupid.

Reminds me of astronaut John Young, who was blisteringly intelligent, but spoke with a soft Florida drawl.

(Not saying I'm blisteringly intelligent, you understand; just that I don't suffer fools gladly... )

[Skittles]

7. I can't help it, Aristus

I just CRINGE when a one syllable word is made in two two - like 'there' being pronounced 'THEY-ER'.

[Aristus]

8. Even so, Southerners can take a short one-syllable word, and turn it into a long

one-syllable word.

I can remember my grandfather saying he was taking the car in to change the oil. Instead of saying "oyall" he would say "Ooooooaaaaaaaaahhhlll." I figured in the time he took to say it, he could have just gone and done it.

[Skittles]

10. in NC, I heard "boiled eggs" as BALD EGGS

really strange

[Aristus]

11. In Texas, it's 'boled eggs'.

Or 'bowled eggs.'

[Skittles]

12. I still remember someone in Texas asking me for a pen

I kept hearing PIN

[Aristus]

13. Yeah.

Or 'pee-inn' is closer...

[Skittles]

14. I would have probably attacked someone for making it two syllables

that's just......EGREGIOUS

[Aristus]

15. I know.

I myself am notorious for assigning someone a lower IQ based upon whether they have a Southern accent, even though I used to talk like that.

Talking in my Texas twang makes me feel like a carefree kid again...

I'll tell you, the first time I heard Mike Papantonio's radio show, hearing liberalism spoken with a Southern accent, I just about burst into tears, I was so happy...

[Skittles]

16. I don't mind southern accents as long as they don't speak SLOOOOOOOOOOWLY

because then it is just plain E X C R U C I A T I N G

[Aristus]

17. That's not me.

I talk so fast, sometimes I need to remind myself that if my patients can't understand what I'm telling them, they won't be compliant with their treatment plan.

[Skittles]

18. actually, when I think about it

EVERYONE who speaks slowly annoys me

[madinmaryland]

19. And irregardless is not a word, FFS! 🤬

[YOHABLO]

20. Uh, OTOH?

[Aristus]

21. Yeah. The piece is about how well-educated conservatives dumb down their speech

in order to try to appeal to their blockheaded constituents.

I'm a well-educated liberal living in the Pacific Northwest, but whenever someone is acting stupidly around me, I slip into my old Texas speech-patterns for reasons even I'm not entirely sure of.

[utopian]

2. Yes, but it's so obviously juvenile

That few take the bait. Churls will churl.

[Igel]

3. People--esp. politicians--learn how to use language for implicit solidarity.

Thatcher was working class. She learned RP to be perceived as middle class.

Blair was middle class. He struggled to master lower-class varieties so as to disguise his origins.

Buckley was from Boston, which the writer thinks of as "mid-Atlantic." That used to be called "New England" before New York City became part of the South, and the pinebarrens the Deep South. (After all, Georgia had pine trees, NJ has pine trees, NJ = Georgia).

Obama grew up in HI. He was raised by white people. He spent a lot of time overseas. And yet he spoke AAEV, and when he spoke he could go back and forth effortlessly, by audience, between different varieties. Listen to his speech, and you know what his audience is without needing a recording. Now it's tinged with southern black preacher a la King, now he sounds Harvard-educated, now he sounds like he's just an average white joe and now he sounds like he was raised in Compton.

"But it's so obviously juvenile" is hardly the point. Many took the "bait." It's just noticeable when (a) you're not trained to focus on language variation or (b) you're focused on content and not form or (c) you don't look for things to be critical of. (b) and (c) tend to co-occur, but they're not the same thing.

[Mike Niendorff]

4. It's about more than cheap shots :

They are literally trying to remove the words "democracy" and "democratic" from American political dialogue.

It's purely Orwellian -- both in intent and effect.


MDN

[Midnight Writer]

9. Heard Senator John Kennedy, who attended Oxford, on the radio last night.

Doing his best to sound like a Good Ol' Boy.

Unfortunately, everything he said was a lie. Good Ol' Boys like to stretch the truth, but they seldom come right out and lie.