Name: Anonymous 2010-09-21 19:48
I was just wondering. Can some one here look over my paper. It's a literary narrative and I want to see if anyone could give me some advice as to what should be added or taken away, grammatical errors, and shit like that:
This has always been a problem for me. I engage an interesting person (or they engage me) and we start talking about something. Unfortunately, after a few minutes they end up saying something I can’t forgive them for. It’s not their fault (Not most of the time anyway…). They just get their words jumbled or they’re just having an off day. Eventually though, I’ll get something along the lines of ”They don’t think it is how it is, but it do.” Outwardly, I smile and continue on the conversation. Inwardly however, I’m sent into a frothy convulsion of grammatical outrage. Twitching violently about; looking for the closest dictionary to bludgeon someone about the head with. Regrettably, I can’t turn this off or anything of the sort. I just have a problem with judging people by how they talk.
Let’s get one thing clear: My swift judgments of people based solely on whether or not they butcher the English language isn’t all bad. I usually perk up when I hear a nice southern drawl. Even the thickest of southern accents and speech patterns makes me giggle (inwardly of course) like a crack addict finding a quarter. The reason for this (other than dementia) as far as I can tell is due to me growing up in the south. Granted I didn’t grow up in the country. I would have loved not having to worry about getting robbed while taking a walk at night, but I digress. One of my favorite words to hear has to be “ya’ll”. Sprinkled discriminately into a conversation would make me positively giddy. Especially when I was younger and the majority of the speech I heard was either formal (teachers teaching) or horrendous (Ebonics and slang from other school children). My uncle on my mother’s side was a kind of undoctrinated southern drawl expert. He would talk in such a thick southern accent that sometimes it would be hard to even understand what he was saying. That didn’t detract from the joy I usually got from listening to him and for the most part, the rest of my family. Even nowadays on the rare occasions my family would get together. I would sit in my grandmother’s kitchen (I’ve never liked crowds, so I would stay in the kitchen while everyone else was in the living room.) listening to swarthy southern baritones and boisterous northern falsettos talk about the news, sports, weather, or the trip down from New York. All of which, was speckled copiously with profanities.
I’ve never really looked down on people who use profanity though. I’ve always seen profanity itself, like all words, as tools to express yourself and the world around you. Like when I accidently stepped on my sisters toe the other week in the supermarket. She was obviously in pain and, right before she yelled at me to watch where I was going, used the word F*** more times than I thought was legal (or possible) in the state of North Carolina without some sort of license. Usually upon hearing someone curse in public I am filled with a sense of pride knowing that in this country where political correctness is growing everyday like the blood/alcohol level of prohibition era New Yorker, there are some people that will disregard the detestable status quo. Honestly I feel there isn’t enough swearing in everyday life. I would definitely respect a janitor more if when asked by a smarmy bathroom attendee if he even knew how to clean, that he would respond with a simple “Why yes sir I do. Do you know how to go f*** yourself? Would you like some assistance with that sir? “ My cup would runneth’ over.
It’s become a sort of hobby of mine to observe how people react to someone speaking in a different language. It’s funny to see their reactions; like at one of the local “Chinese” restaurants that populate Elizabeth city. You know the ones that don’t sell actual Chinese food, just some Americanized fast food concoction. I’ll go in, order something unhealthy that I know will take a while to make (despite their claims of only taking “about ten minutes”) and just watch. I’ll see a few teenagers walk in and giggle to themselves as the women behind the counter yells the order back to the cooks in the kitchen (most likely her relatives) in what is usually Vietnamese, Cantonese or more irregularly Laotian. They stride up to the women and order chicken wings and rice in a loud, yet derisive way; like you would speak to a mentally handicapped child. The woman will take their order in broken English, repeating the process she did with my order (to no shortage of chuckles), and smile at them. “Ten minutes” she says. They’ll turn and walk out. I see this all the time. I had to give credit to the woman, she was poised throughout the entire ordeal and I couldn’t help but admire her steadfastness as I emptied packet after packet of duck sauce into the gas tank of that group of young men’s truck.
This has always been a problem for me. I engage an interesting person (or they engage me) and we start talking about something. Unfortunately, after a few minutes they end up saying something I can’t forgive them for. It’s not their fault (Not most of the time anyway…). They just get their words jumbled or they’re just having an off day. Eventually though, I’ll get something along the lines of ”They don’t think it is how it is, but it do.” Outwardly, I smile and continue on the conversation. Inwardly however, I’m sent into a frothy convulsion of grammatical outrage. Twitching violently about; looking for the closest dictionary to bludgeon someone about the head with. Regrettably, I can’t turn this off or anything of the sort. I just have a problem with judging people by how they talk.
Let’s get one thing clear: My swift judgments of people based solely on whether or not they butcher the English language isn’t all bad. I usually perk up when I hear a nice southern drawl. Even the thickest of southern accents and speech patterns makes me giggle (inwardly of course) like a crack addict finding a quarter. The reason for this (other than dementia) as far as I can tell is due to me growing up in the south. Granted I didn’t grow up in the country. I would have loved not having to worry about getting robbed while taking a walk at night, but I digress. One of my favorite words to hear has to be “ya’ll”. Sprinkled discriminately into a conversation would make me positively giddy. Especially when I was younger and the majority of the speech I heard was either formal (teachers teaching) or horrendous (Ebonics and slang from other school children). My uncle on my mother’s side was a kind of undoctrinated southern drawl expert. He would talk in such a thick southern accent that sometimes it would be hard to even understand what he was saying. That didn’t detract from the joy I usually got from listening to him and for the most part, the rest of my family. Even nowadays on the rare occasions my family would get together. I would sit in my grandmother’s kitchen (I’ve never liked crowds, so I would stay in the kitchen while everyone else was in the living room.) listening to swarthy southern baritones and boisterous northern falsettos talk about the news, sports, weather, or the trip down from New York. All of which, was speckled copiously with profanities.
I’ve never really looked down on people who use profanity though. I’ve always seen profanity itself, like all words, as tools to express yourself and the world around you. Like when I accidently stepped on my sisters toe the other week in the supermarket. She was obviously in pain and, right before she yelled at me to watch where I was going, used the word F*** more times than I thought was legal (or possible) in the state of North Carolina without some sort of license. Usually upon hearing someone curse in public I am filled with a sense of pride knowing that in this country where political correctness is growing everyday like the blood/alcohol level of prohibition era New Yorker, there are some people that will disregard the detestable status quo. Honestly I feel there isn’t enough swearing in everyday life. I would definitely respect a janitor more if when asked by a smarmy bathroom attendee if he even knew how to clean, that he would respond with a simple “Why yes sir I do. Do you know how to go f*** yourself? Would you like some assistance with that sir? “ My cup would runneth’ over.
It’s become a sort of hobby of mine to observe how people react to someone speaking in a different language. It’s funny to see their reactions; like at one of the local “Chinese” restaurants that populate Elizabeth city. You know the ones that don’t sell actual Chinese food, just some Americanized fast food concoction. I’ll go in, order something unhealthy that I know will take a while to make (despite their claims of only taking “about ten minutes”) and just watch. I’ll see a few teenagers walk in and giggle to themselves as the women behind the counter yells the order back to the cooks in the kitchen (most likely her relatives) in what is usually Vietnamese, Cantonese or more irregularly Laotian. They stride up to the women and order chicken wings and rice in a loud, yet derisive way; like you would speak to a mentally handicapped child. The woman will take their order in broken English, repeating the process she did with my order (to no shortage of chuckles), and smile at them. “Ten minutes” she says. They’ll turn and walk out. I see this all the time. I had to give credit to the woman, she was poised throughout the entire ordeal and I couldn’t help but admire her steadfastness as I emptied packet after packet of duck sauce into the gas tank of that group of young men’s truck.