Why do Americans use English so poorly?

[Furryjones]

I've only met a handful of americans, but most spoke with proper English. I'm from Canada and its the same here, many people speak broken English or terribly incorrect mannerisms and grammar. I have to say sometimes I am subject to such grammatical errors but I try to speak as perfect as possible, and sometimes I get stupid responses because the person I'm talking to doesn't understand my speech, for I'm talking on a different intellectual level then them. Every country has varying levels of intelligence and as such I'm sure every country has their version of a 'redneck' who completely butchers their home language.

 

[Kitutal]

I thought all the abbreviations were so outsiders don't know what we're talking about.

 

[Bleedswhitefire]

We are from AMERICA. We'll speak how ever in the hell we wont to speak! Haha.

No, but realy, a lot of us in the US just don't care. At least here in the South. A lot of times though, the way we talk is the right way to us. The north and South parts of the US speak a little bit diferently. Northern people say crick. Southern people say creak.






On another note(because I'm talkin about the north and South) .... The South well rise again! Haha.

 

[Zydala]

Prescriptive linguistics is B.S.

 

[Gr8fulFox]

We use English so poorly because it's a free country, icehole.

 

[Fenrari]

Prescriptive linguistics is B.S.

May I ask what this has to do with the topic at hand?

 

[Zydala]

May I ask what this has to do with the topic at hand?

Judging people by their usage (or "mishandling") of a language "standard" falls under prescriptivism.

Prescriptivism is what is making people use the words "poor" and "proper" in this conversation, because we're comparing it to a standard

but the standard merely exists for people who can consider themselves of a "higher" standard/class to isolate or group together those who seem to be more "ignorant" or "poorer" than them.

When in truth, if you understand someone when they speak, standard or not, then language is doing its job and there's nothing to judge a person by, except your own bias towards them for not speaking the same way you do.

So "Why do Americans use English so poorly" translates to me as "why do all the plebians of this country not have the education or the desire to speak to the standard that I hold them to"

okay that's a little rough and mean but you know what I mean I don't actually think you think that or anything.

 

[Oshy]

I am a Yugoslavian (Serbian) German who has been raised in both German and English. My English is what I think to be acceptable, but I do make mistakes. Idiotically, very simple mistakes.

I transition a lot. 2/4 of the year ill spend speaking German, the other 2/4, English. It makes it hard to learn in schools sometimes, but I find it to work out well. A lot of my family speaks Yugoslavian and German, so even if I use English a lot more, I still have to keep that in my brain for traveling, visiting, writing, allllll of that stuff. I actually love how similar English and German are. Some of the words just look so similar. Such as; Music (English) and Musik (German). Pronunciation is a pain sometimes, but I find a way.

I think it depends on where you come from. If you are around a ton of poor English speakers, your English will probably be very limited. I take pride in my language learning and writing, so if I can improve, I will.
I've been thinking about learning some Serbian and Yiddish but then I realized how much of a pain it would be to add that in to my list. Phrases are enough for me right now. -_-;

 

[Abbi Normal]

I've heard the same thing about Quebec french too.

Not so much latin spanish, that's more Spanglish and Nahuatl.

Very much not the case of Quebec French. To sum it up, as one of my French teachers told us on the difference, "In France, there's a word for parking lot. In Quebec, it's 'le parking lot'."

 

[Artillery Spam]

Necros and generalizations.

The horror.

 

[N30Nphoenix]

I live in Southern USA, and god it is annoying the way some people pronounce their words, and use their grammar incorrectly. You would think that people would try to at least speak there language halfway decent. That being said I don't think that English when used in in America should be called English.

 

[RockerFox]

It also depends on where in America you go. There are like 7 or 8 distinct "dialects" of American English

 

[Picea]

Oh yah, a coupla days agou we got some pertch ahp dehr near t'dha bank at' the wood mill there. I miss the flow of the U.P. conversations, hard to understand if you aren't familiar with the pronunciations.

 

[Astus]

The point of language is to get information passed on to another in order to convey meaning. Understanding this, based on the societal needs, language will change over time, and will not always follow the same course as its predecessors once did. The simpler one makes a language the more people can communicate with it. Taking Americans for example, they broke from England a far while back, and have been away long enough for the original teachings of the English language to change. Even now I feel like the language is taking a turn down acronym lane with all the lols and rofls. The worst in my opinion is when people say "I am good" or "I did good on that test". For some reason that grinds my gears. "I am well" and "I did well on that test" are the correct grammatical responses. "I feel good" or "my performance on that test was good" are I guess what people were trying to shoot for. I'm just ranting on. My simple response, language is best served simple, because they are just trying to convey a message. As well language changes over time.

 

[Torrijos-sama]

Oh yah, a coupla days agou we got some pertch ahp dehr near t'dha bank at' the wood mill there. I miss the flow of the U.P. conversations, hard to understand if you aren't familiar with the pronunciations.

You Yupers and your... What does the Upper Peninsula even have?

I live in Southern USA, and god it is annoying the way some people pronounce their words, and use their grammar incorrectly. You would think that people would try to at least speak there language halfway decent. That being said I don't think that English when used in in America should be called English.

Technically, English in the Southern United States is far more similar to dialects in Ireland, and Scotland... And the Scots language in of itself. Which would mean that the Southern accent might possibly be a derivative of a language other than High, Modern English.

 

[Fiab]

Oh yah, a coupla days agou we got some pertch ahp dehr near t'dha bank at' the wood mill there. I miss the flow of the U.P. conversations, hard to understand if you aren't familiar with the pronunciations.

Either I've lived here long enough to have my brain automatically translate the speech to not that, or it changes drastically in the hour it takes for me to get as far UP as you can go.

You Yupers and your... What does the Upper Peninsula even have?

Late April snowstorms and uncreatively named towns.... if you wanna count trees then there's them things too.

 

[lefurr]

I live in Montana and I was born and raised here and our English is pretty decent here. I moved to FL, AL, and GA for three years total. And their English isn't that great compared to the west and northern states. It's most likely due to the poor education systems those states have. (I don't mean that in a bad way either.)

 

[Auramaru]

Story time!
I, being the nerd that I am, talk to internet friends more than real friends. There was this one summer that I binged World of Warcraft and had a really good friend from Canada...

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I said the word "both", he would repeat it, making fun of how I said it. Because I'm from Midwestern US and people say "both" as if it had an L in it... "Bolth".

He trained me to say it "both" like... "bothe"...

Funny story, but yeah... now I say "both" and "sorry" like a Canadian... and I live in Iowa, USA. xD

 

[VintageLynx]

I'm from the UK and when I visit the USA people don't don't understand what I'm saying - or if they do they laugh at my expense. What's that about? I understand USA tourists easily even when they're saying the town names or whatever completely wrong.

 

[Hinalle K.]

I'm from the UK and when I visit the USA people don't don't understand what I'm saying - or if they do they laugh at my expense. What's that about? I understand USA tourists easily even when they're saying the town names or whatever completely wrong.

It's because some British accents sound like gibberish.

All American accents are extremely easy to understand,I've NEVER had a problem with any of them, but some British accents are just ridiculous.
This is coming from a foreigner.

 

[FangWarrior]

Because us Americans are to lazy to type it down, so we abbreviate everything kinda like...

LOL, Wtf, Ikr, STFU, LMFAO, etc.


Don't get me wrong, a lot of these abbreviations are useful, but some are just not even necessary.

It's not that hard, just type "I know right?" you don't have to abbreviate everything.

 

[Hewge]

Eh? I'm pretty sure text/internet abbreviations aren't an American only thing.

 

[Mr. Sparta]

Hey, we love our unnecessary acronyms!

 

[dogit]

Well I'd say that not all Americans have bad English just the rednecks and they cant speak English because there rednecks. It's very simple.

 

[FangWarrior]

Eh? I'm pretty sure text/internet abbreviations aren't an American only thing.

True