words

[Bethany K. Dumas]

On Tue, 3 Jul 2001, James A. Landau wrote:

>"Xtreme Talk" is a poor title because there are people who are unable to
>conduct a conversation without using a plethora of four-letter words.  To
>such a person, polite discourse would amount to Extreme Talk.

Thanks for a new perspective on this, Jim. Actually, I like the idea that
some students would think of polite discourse as Xtreme talk, My goal
would be to teach a non-threatening intro to lang variation/sociolx course
in which we would move from examples (and history) of street talk,
etc., to alternatives, concluding with a study of the roles of
intentionality and context. It was my undergraduate students (in Technical
and Professional Writing) who came up with the course name).

Bethany