"teabonics"

[Victor Steinbok]

I don't think the point of referring to it as "teabonics" has to make
linguistic sense. It is simply a form of /political/ payback for
outlandish claims concerning ebonics. The focus point is not the
dialect, but sarcasm.

Analogy is a flawed game. For every analogy offered for illustrative
purposes, there are thousands complaining that it does not work. What
seems to be at issue here is the level of explanation, not its validity.

     VS-)

On 4/17/2010 1:17 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> On Apr 17, 2010, at 9:56 AM, Amy West wrote:
>
>> A friend sent to another list this link:
>>
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/pargon/4469682774/in/set-72157623594187379/
>>
>> to a slideshow of Tea-Party signs, and they've identified the
>> non-standard dialect used in these signs as "teabonics."
>>
> some discussion here:
>
> ML, 3/31/10: Teabonics?:
>    http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2221
>
> note that the signs do *not* have non-standard dialect forms; they
> have non-standard *spellings* -- which are being mocked (as ignorant
> and illiterate) in postings like the  one above.
>
> plenty of people have pointed out that ebonics is not a matter of
> spelling, except incidentally, so the analogy of so-called "teabonics"
> to ebonics is seriously flawed.
>
> arnold
>

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