What don't you like about Pittsburgh? (Erie, York: house, college, middle-class)

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by COPANUT

Are you telling me that people using bad grammar, saying "I ain't got, I seen, Yinz guys, he don't, is OK?






Seriously. You think I ain't got, I seen, and He don't is proper grammar?

Tell me you're kidding.

What's "proper"? What is the difference between "proper" and "bad"?

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by COPANUT

You sound like a tree-hugger, there is no right or wrong, only what feels good.

Who said anything about feelings? The standard for a successful use of language is whether you communicated your intended meaning to your intended audience. But to do that reliably, you need to conform your use of language to the usage patterns common within the community that audience comes from. That is a pragmatic sense of what counts as success in the use of language, and it has nothing in particular to do with your feelings.

Are you telling me that people using bad grammar, saying "I ain't got, I seen, Yinz guys, he don't, is OK?

Well, if that is how people in the relevant linguistic community use language to communicate the relevant meanings, and you can therefore use language in that way to convey your intended meaning to your audience, there is no other standard by which to judge those uses of language "bad". But again, I acknowledge that since some people might believe those particular usages are "bad", you might be well advised to avoid them anyway.

Incidentally, although I noted that from long experience it is very difficult to convince people to drop notions like "wrong", "incorrect", or "bad" when speaking about widespread language uses, I will take one stab at it. One way of putting this point is to note that when people speak French, they are speaking really "bad" English. But no one actually thinks that is "bad", because no one would suggest the use of language called "English" provides a proper standard by which to judge the use of language called "French".

The point I am making here is basically the same, but just as applied to people who speak different variations of English. Basically, there is no better justification for taking one of those variations of English and using it to judge all the other variations than there is for taking English in general and using it to judge French, Italian, or so on. And that is what you must be implicitly doing when you call some widespread variations on English "bad".

Once more, though, I will acknowledge that in practice, at least in some contexts, you nonetheless may have to restrict your use of language to what people consider "good", and avoid uses that people consider "bad", since the notion that there are "good" and "bad" uses of language is very widespread.

[COPANUT]

Originally Posted by supersoulty

What's "proper"? What is the difference between "proper" and "bad"?

I saw, I don't have, he doesn't.


Unless the rules of grammar have changed, that is proper.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Not to mention if you moved to CO, no one would know what you were talking about if you said "Yinz goin t'lunch now?"

And just imagined if you tried speaking Chinese!

The obvious point is that if you move to any given place, it is a good idea to learn how people in that place use language, and then start using language that way when talking to those people.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by COPANUT

Unless the rules of grammar have changed, that is proper.

What are THE rules of grammar? Again, English and, say, Chinese have different grammatical patterns--does that mean one or the other language is violating THE rules?

[supersoulty]

Originally Posted by COPANUT

I saw, I don't have, he doesn't.


Unless the rules of grammar have changed, that is proper.

Yeah, I am well aware. My question is, why are those "the rules".

[COPANUT]

I don't want to get into a p ing match. But if you honestly believe that using Pittsburghese is proper, more power to you. But if someone applies for a job at my company saying Yinz guys and he don't, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

My Mother only had a high-school education, but I thank her everyday for teaching her kids the proper way to speak.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by COPANUT

But if someone applies for a job at my company saying Yinz guys and he don't, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And that is my point. Whether or not there is a justification for your belief that using "yinz" is "bad", obviously you are not about to be convinced otherwise by some strangers articulating linguistic theory, particularly not when those people are contradicting what you were taught by your Mother. And so in practice people may want to avoid using the term (at least in certain contexts), regardless of what linguists might have to say on the subject.

[Katiana]

This is different than me trying to communicate in Chinese. We are talking about both people speaking English. Here are some quotes from a previous thread about this:

Originally Posted by claremarie

If I worked with people who actually thought it was worth making me not as professional as my work is, then those are people I wouldn't want to work for.

And if my attorney said, "Can yinz come dawntawn, cuz your wills need signed 'n at?," I'd find another attorney...
Those who either cannot or deliberately choose not to speak standard, grammatically correct English should not be surprised if people question their professional competence.

Originally Posted by Katiana

LOL! I actually did laugh out loud when I read that! Yes, I agree. And if my doctor said, "Yur clestral (cholesterol) nees checked in three mos aftr yinz've cut dahn on chipped ham 'n at", I'd find a new doctor.

Like it or not, use of "yinz", slurring words and the like mark one not as a Pittsburgher, but as uneducated. (Note I did not say unintelligent.)

If I worked with people who actually thought it was worth making me not as professional as my work is, then those are people I wouldn't want to work for.

It is not always possible to be so choosy about who one works for. And I would not make being able to say "yinz" a deal-breaker when looking for a job.

Here is a thread:
Yinz or Younz ...

A problem with "yinz" is that most English speakers do not know what it means. When my DD was in 8th grade, she had a teacher from N. Carolina. The teacher asked the class if anyone had ever heard the word "yinz" before. My daughter was the only one who had ever heard the word, b/c she was the only one who had ever been to Pittsburgh. The teacher went on to explain that it is used in the Appalachians as well. It is usually considered a word used by the uneducated.

[supersoulty]

Let me give you three examples to better illustrate what I am saying:

1) In English we are often told that double negatives are bad. Typically, when one asks why, we are told that this is because you are logically contradicting yourself. However, in standard French, double negation is considered "proper".

Almost every non-standard variety of English contains double negation. Almost every form of non-standard French leaves out the double negation.

So, I ask you this... are is the English language more logically sound than the French language? And if so, why then are English speakers so much less logical than French speakers?

2) Winston Churchill spoke a variety of very "High English". Even he thought some of the "Rules" of the English language were laughable.

Famous example: In English, we are often told that there is something that is just wrong with ending a sentence in a preposition. Churchill once sent a open letter to be printed and reviewed by the other members of government. A secretary returned the letter to Churchill, and stated that before he passed it on to be printed, Churchill would have to correct his multiple usages of prepositions before periods.

Churchill wrote back, in response:

"My fellow. From now on that kind of errant pedantry is something up with which I shall not put."

3) In grade school, we are often confronted with this silent "e" in the English language, which simply baffles a number of younger children. If any student in the class is brave enough to ask why it is there, they are often told by teacher that it is because the "e" was placed there to mark the fact that the vowel, often several letters in front of it, is to be pronounced "long". Did you ever stop to think about how improbable that actually is?

The truth is that that "silent e" used to be pronounced, back when words like "name" were pronounced "nah-ma". Similarly, a word like "feed" was once pronounced "fay-d". What happened to that was something called the "great vowel shift" which is something that happened in the 1400's and vowel shifting, as such, continues to this day. When that happen, if became awkward to say "nay-ma", so the "a" sound fell off. However, the spelling was already set at N-A-M-E and that lasted, and thus we have the "silent e's" of English.

Great Vowel Shift - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What my point in all this? Well, my point is that there is no point. Language rules are typically quite arbitrary and often we invent reasons to explain why things "should" be a certain way that simply have no basis is anything.