Date:         Sat, 7 Dec 2002 14:50:22 -0600
Reply-To:     Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stan Wilder <wilden1@JUNO.COM>
Subject:      Re: English lessons
Comments: To: Cotsford@AOL.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I joined the Navy in 1959 in Dallas TX.
My first trip was to boot camp ............... we had Eskimo, Samoan,
Philippine, Hispanic, East Coast, Midwest and of course California guys
there. Everybody had their own verbal communication skills.
By the time a year had passed at tech school and then stationing on the
USS Saratoga in the Mediterranean Sea I could pretty well guess the home
state of most strangers I met.
Some individuals played heavily on their accents and local colorful
speech patterns.
The English language was mutilated in almost every sentence by some
speakers while others spoke precisely and with proper enunciation.
It breaks down to this in my mind ................ the persons with the
higher IQ presented themselves better through speech than those with
lesser IQs.
There were always exceptions like persons with borderline symptoms of ADD
or Dyslexia that just never seemed to track a conversation to the end.
Spend a few weeks in New Orleans Louisiana then break loose and go to
Boston Massachusetts........... wow what a change.

Stan Wilder

On Sat, 7 Dec 2002 11:16:51 EST Steve Cotsford <Cotsford@AOL.COM> writes:
> I may be guilty of over -generalising but where I live in the South
> East,
> most Americans I hear speaking seem to be oblivious of the
> difference between
> adjectives and adverbs.  Adverbs seem to be unknown or are used by
> accident.
>  On top of that they seem to use double negatives as the rule .
>
> They often say "I don't got no Westy" and "I could care less" etc.,
> which
> indicates they are saying exactly the opposite of what they mean to
> say. i.e.
>  "I don't have a Westy"  and "I couldn't care less".
> Some seem to be proud of their speech patterns and the fact that
> they can't
> spell .
>
> I once asked my childrens'  English teacher if she ever corrected
> their
> spoken English.
> She replied "No, we wouldn't want to embarass anyone".
>
> Go ahead, submit your corrections and suggestions.   Those who want
> to
> improve their English will take note.  Otherwise your efforts are
> largely
> wasted.    Good fodder for fun though !
>
> cheers,
> Steve Cotsford
> Columbia SC
>
>

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