[ SECRET POST #2482 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2482 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Comments

Classist language insult rant

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up in a small, rural town; my village had maybe 100 people living in it, and the whole town (comprised of 7 or 8 villages and hamlets) was maybe 1000 people in all. So, you get what I mean-- we're incredibly small and backwoods.

My town is in the Northeast United States-- we have a very strong history of Irish, Scots, British, and Scots-Irish settlers. We still retain a good portion of old language, and our accent is pretty distinct and hard to decipher if an outsider tries to listen to several community members interacting.

Growing up, one of the highest compliments to one's intelligence was along the lines of, "You speak so well!" or, "You have such good diction!" or "You speak so clearly!"

Now, this wasn't to indicate that you were getting over a speech impediment, but because you didn't sound "lazy" when you were speaking. And by "lazy", educators meant you didn't drop your "ing"s or combine them into an "ine" sound; you enunciated your k's and v's, and spoke the middle t sounds instead of leaving them at the back of your throat.

My regional accent is not all that well studied-- I've seen it called "cricker" some places, and it's largely characterized by dropping almost all of your consonants, and your vowels sounding more border Canadian than standard American.

When I was growing up, I was often complimented in school on my clear and intelligent-sounding speech. Why? Because I had "good diction" and "clear pronunciation". This just meant I didn't sound like I spoke "cricker".

But if you did sound like you spoke cricker, your intelligence and academic ability was questioned. Because it was internalized, that sounding like you came from small, rural America was bad-- it made you short sighted, with a small world view, rife with all kinds of undesirable social practices, a defunct education, and there was probably kiddy-diddling in your family.

Even academics-- even academics who purport to claim tolerance of non-standard dialects-- in linguistics whom I have encountered, have responded to me, when I would ask them a question about the practices in my dialect, would respond, "Well, they're probably just uneducated." By which they generally mean "undereducated", because speaking in such a non-standard way means they can't even have achieved a minimum of "proper" education.

This has been bothering more and more. As middle class white culture is generally seen as providing the baseline in terms of "mainstream" culture, it's okay for them to make fun of, and indulge in fascinated contempt of poor white culture.

Why? Because we're not ethnic. We're largely white; if you got a poor ethnic community in some of the mainstream shows in the lines of Duck Dynasty or Honey Boo Boo, there would be such a shitstorm on all sides. We've all determined it's not cool to make fun of cultures that mainstream America has historically shit on for being ethnic.

But it's still okay to mock and voyeuristically enjoy watching the poor people who are white, and who act in ways that seem strange, or quaint, or just trashy or classless. (I admit to being guilty of expressing mainstream judgement as well, even if only to tease someone in fun; when a peer from my home community commented to a family practice of eating squirrel, I counseled that he shouldn't admit to that in public. But that gives you a picture, right?)

I've felt echoes of this in my home community, which supports a thriving tourist industry in the summer months. People with campers that cost more than my house growing up, come in and make snide comments about the way we live.

Did anybody else have this kind of comment/compliment growing up? "You speak so well?" And did it have a class or ethnic component to it?

Re: Classist language insult rant

[(Anonymous)]

So....are you from New York state? The towns comprised of villages and hamlets thing is something I've only encountered in NY.

But to your question, not so much directly complimented like that but it's common for people to make fun of the stronger accents. I'm from New England area (lived all over) and the 'down east' accent gets a lot of flak. Same as you said, the whole uneducated hick type of thing. And yeah, suddenly because of your accent it's fair game to make fun of, mock, and look down on people.

Re: Classist language insult rant

[(Anonymous)]

...Well, yes. But not exactly the same way you mean. I'm from the South and the state specifically is one where most people don't raise too much of an eyebrow if you're eating something that you obviously hunted because it's actually pretty common [...hunting is a *huge* hobby here]. So it's not so much the people here who do it, but the people who come from out of state [and, generally, ouside the South]? Ooooh boy. I think that, so far, I've yet to meet someone from the NE who *hasn't* done some variation of "Oh...you're *actually* from *here*? I never would have guessed!*" I'm sure there are plenty from there that don't do it - I've just never met them. It's also pretty common with the other parts of the US that I've met...I've just also met people from there that didn't do it.

So yeah, I've come across plenty of back-handed compliments like that, sadly. And, for whatever it's worth, I *do* think that the stereotype of a lower class hick southerner [and everything associated with that] has a fair amount to do with it.

*Paraphrasing, but the wording/tone of voice always implies that being from ~here~ is some horrible thing.

Re: Classist language insult rant

[(Anonymous)]

I'm from the deep south United States, but grew up in the suburbs of a large urban area so while I do have an accent, I don't have the strong Southern drawl generally portrayed in national media. Growing up, extended family living in rural areas would give me grief about "talking like a Yankee." More annoying to me is when I've traveled people treat me completely differently before and after they find out where I'm from. After I reveal I'm from the South, even after extended conversations, they'll start using smaller words, talking louder, or mimicking the accent I guess they think I should have.