talkin' right

[Patrick Courts]

dInIs Preston was quoted in the Buffalo News this morning in an article
describing attempts to teach people to "overcome" their dialects so they
will not be discriminated against. While Dennis's quote pointed out that
dialects are irrationally used to stereotype people, the article itself
appeared on the Money Page of the newspaper and quoted several individuals
who were trying change their dialects so they could get better jobs. I
thought it interesting that, instead of focusing on minorities, so the
focus was on Texans. That's a fairly large group of people who need to have
their talkin' fixed. Of course with Dan Rather as a role model, who knows.
For myself, I know that if anyone had ever taught Dennis how to talk right,
then there would be hope for me.



Pat

Please Note: I must use a voice software program that sometimes
mis-translates what I say, or mistakes my breathing for words and inserts
things like "of, in, the" etc. In the rush of doing e-mail I sometimes miss
these errors in my proof reading. My apologies.


Patrick L. Courts
Professor of English
State University of New York at Fredonia
Fredonia, NY 14063
e-mail:  courts at ait.fredonia.edu


http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/courts/