On Correctness... and hopefully other

On Correctness:

Much as it is now, correctness in linguistics, is due to a need for power (sorry about the social justice mind that's still at work). In many ways it parallels the treatment of women: education equals unchase. By saying educated women are unchase they are able to control their education and their lives. In similar fashion, by saying you need to be correct, especially in pronunciation, you are setting limitations/expectations that not everyone can live up to. Although it did help unify education by having spelling/grammar/pronounciation expectations, it limited a lot of people. As Michael Faris presented in class, most education systems were limited to those at least in middle class. This includes universities like Oxford and Cambridge, the dissident schools, and the Redbrick universities. Although all three of these had different curriculums and students seeking different educations, they all served the the same monetary classes.

Faris also noted the working class may have received an education but it wasn't the same as others, the employed practical skills, working skills. Basically, anything that can help them continue to do menial work, but nothing that will broaden their mind. This immediately sets up the ability to distinguish between classes: the upper and middle classes will speak "eloquently" and the lower classes will speak in broken patterns, not graceful, and according to the other two classes, mispronouncing everything.

There is still a desire for correctness today, within the poetry world at least. Three years ago a female novelist came to OSU as a visiting writer. She briefly gave her ideas on writing, her writing process, and where she plans to go from there. A Q&A session followed and got on the subject of minority writers. Her response was they are "destroying" the English language and getting way too much credit for it. She cited that Maya Angelou taught too many bad habits... and then her voice trailed off when she saw me, and said, "but we still need them." I then asked her if she felt the same way about women writers, if they are horrible writers, "but we still need them." And I asked the group in general if Southern writers did the same to the language, destroyed it, "but we still need them." Most responded in accordance with me, but others would say there's nothing wrong with the way Southerners speak, citing, "It's just another dialect." I then asked if minorities, each individual group, had their own dialect. Some agreed, a handful didn't.