Comments on: Do We Applaud Poor Grammar?

By: angibruss

angibruss — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:59:12 +0000

Hmm… Festus, eh?

By: keith

keith — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 17:33:03 +0000

Speaking as one who spent 6 years in college earning an education degree and a former history/English teacher, it’s alright to abuse the language once you’ve proven you know how to use it correctly. As a born and bred Okie, sometimes it’s ok to speak like Festus from “Gunsmoke”. Imagine someone trying to sell a life insurance policy talking and sounding like they just fell off a south-bound Santa Fe train. “I hear you ain’t got no protection. I got just the thing you’ll be a needin’.”
Culture, like so many other things in life, has its time and place.

By: angibruss

angibruss — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:47:08 +0000

Rock the Casbah has a good point, it might be cultural. But I’m not sure if I would say the whole culture is represented by that dialect. And does all of the culture want rappers and singers to speak for them? It seems hard to believe that kind of grammar embodies an ENTIRE culture.

By: G.I. Luvmoney

G.I. Luvmoney — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 17:37:05 +0000

What a timely topic. I heard Dr. Maya Angelou speak this past Friday evening and she brought up this very topic. She said that she is frequently asked her opinion on many aspects of American and African-American culture, and especially about music. Her response to the argument that artist must “keep it real” was “They are wrong to use that language because those are the words that we used against me. And, by continuing to speak in such a way, they prove the original users to be correct.”

Sure, the music is reflective of the culture….its the culture that must change.

By: Rock the Casbah

Rock the Casbah — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 04:19:30 +0000

You miss the whole cultural statement aspect of the performance. Rap is African American; African Americans are from the South; the South has its own particular way of speaking English, and some forms of it are identified as speech patterns of African Americans. I say that you miss the cultural aspect because a performer must remain true to culture that generated that particular phenomena. An Italian opera, for instance, is sung in Italian. Even if Timbaland, or to please you, Timberland, couldn’t “rap” any other way and retain artistic credibility with his audience. You can’t tap dance with your teeth.

As far as children imitating the speech patterns found in this music, continuing to correct them till kingdom come will reassure them that it’s unacceptable. Hardly anyone has to walk too far from to confirm this.