What is considered proper English?
Getting the chance to read this article, by Young, really allowed me as not only a reader, but as a human being, to take a step back and question myself about my previous beliefs. Growing up in Michigan and only being 45min from Detroit and other areas such as Pontiac, and Flint, I was exposed to many different types of people, which included different lingos and dialects. Besides the unorthodoxly style of this article, the sentences were easy to understand. Many of my friends talk like this regularly and I’ve become used to it, and have even adopted some of their own language into my vocabulary. I’m never one to make fun of the way they used words or how they sounded, but I will be honest, I did see some of these people in an uneducated light. I grew up learning since I was a child the proper way to construct a sentence and what words to use, or at least what is ‘considered’ proper. After reading Young’s article I realized that there technically isn’t a correct way to speak and it’s all just a way to produce uniformity. This made me question what I’d previously been taught and learned throughout schools.
Throughout our class discussion on the article many valuable opinions and thoughts were presented. One that really stuck with me was when the topic of college admissions was brought up. Colleges always tell us to be ourselves and that they would much rather see us than someone who is trying to sound smart. But how true is that statement? If I was to write a college essay in the same way I speak to my friends, how good of chance would I have got into my current university? Colleges push this agenda, but yet students are too scared to be condemned by these universities. It’s unfortunate that we live in a society where people are pushed toward something they’re not in hopes of satisfying something/someone. I’ve been reading a lot of college level articles recently and I’ve noticed a higher level of vocabulary used. Why is it necessary to use a more ‘fancy’ that means the exact same thing that some groups might not be able to understand? When my friends talk to me in their lingo I can understand it perfectly fine and they sure aren’t using any advanced vocabulary.
Who knows that a little article written in informal language would provide so much conversation and internal thought. I’m very fortunate to have had an opportunity to learn english throughout school, but how valuable was that really? At the end of the day as long as you’re able to convey a message it doesn’t matter how you say it. While maintaining a line between outright illegible and a way of writing that’s easy for everyone I think we should start to make the way we write more personal and easier for everyone to convey their thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, it would definitely be a hard transition , but it’s time to stop condemning people because they portray their ideas differently.
