Posted by giveawayboy on October 03, 2002 at 08:33:33:
In Reply to: wait a minute posted by john on October 03, 2002 at 06:21:11:
I agree with what you wrote below John. Especially the JUST HAVING FUN part. I just wanted to mention some things about this. I agree w you about 'white bread'. I know in some ways when we post we might appear the biggest gringos out there. It's O.K. since I don't mind being white. I think white people rock! And far from what people say, WHITE people DO have soul. However,we've allowed ourselves to be caricatured as 'not being able to jump' for so long, or as 'not having rhythm' for so long. I think one problem is that the people who make such ignorant statements about white folk don't know alot about people in general. I think underneath we are more alike than we wish to know. I think that the key is in trying to understand others.
I think Raul is cool since he knows that he is just human. He doesn't have to be into the 'latino' thing or the 'white' thing. He just likes what he likes. Also, you are right, when he speaks to someone he doesn't know, or when he reads his poetry he has a different way of speaking, and when he talks to his friends another way (more relaxed, but still not his netspeech) and then there's his emails, posts and ims (the most relaxed). Now onto my confessions about screentext.
now i'll be the first one to tell you that i brk grammatical rules sometimes just to type faster, and perhaps that's not very good. There are some great books on screen text vs. codex or handwritten text and how this affects the way we read and learn. One of these books is:
THE GUTENBERG ELEGIES by Sven Birkerts. Good stuff!
Sincerely, Bill
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Now I may be mostly white, but I am far from white bread. I can handle just about any dialect I've run into-- when spoken. The problem is that when typing there is no inflection which is linguistically what makes dialects understandable. I've never seen a book on dialectic grammer, so it's not like there is any convention on the spelling. Personally, I did get "fasho" for the record. But I'm as guilty as anyone for typing without checking what i type. I transpose letters all the time.
We must never assume that those who speak or write according to proper english are unable to understand the other slang. And the reverse is true, we must never assume that accents or dialects reflect anything about intelligence. I was raised in backwoods Florida around some of the thickest black and spanish dialects around. believe me it has nothing to with race or culture.
Plus I've heard you speak extremely well, you just type in dialect.
(not mad, just having fun with this ;)