On Grammar Supremacy
I wrote a previous version of this in my notes on Facebook, a few months back, and it’s still very relevant.
First, view the link here (and I apologize if you have to copy and paste, but it’s important for the context):
The cartoon, itself, is funny, but I want to point out something about the entire meme because I’m going to be a pain in the ass.
Some linguists will recognize that as the vernacular use in conversation. By the way, “I didn’t do nuthin’!” is a monotransitive clause. The pronoun “I” is the Subject element, “didn’t do” is the verb (phrase) element and “nuthin,” being an indefinite pronoun (nothing), is the Direct Object.
I recognize this as a double negative. However, other languages use double negatives for emphasis rather than negating the meaning of the negative verb phrase, “didn’t do.” Furthermore, English used to have double negatives for this very purpose, but somewhere in the language’s evolution, the double negative was dropped.
Yet, it is still used for the meaning of emphasis within the vernacular.
“Ooo! A confession,” can be analyzed further. “Ooo,” is an insert word and the rest is a form of ellipsis to potentially mean something like, “There is a confession,” or “He is making a confession,” based on the wordplay humor of the double negative identified in perscriptivist grammar.
I understand this funny picture, but “English belongs to all who use it”, whether or not personal lexicons and grammatical patterns fit into the prescriptive grammar of the language. Additionally, there is no actual “standard” English. There is North American English, British English, Australian English, Pakistani-English, etc.
You can laugh at the cartoon for its wordplay without asserting supremacy over another person or group of people who use the language in a way you don’t acknowledge as correct from your point of view.
While the creator of this meme initially asserted the supremacy, those who share it, in agreement, are propagating that same attitude, even though it may not be obvious. To be a little more forthcoming, grammar supremacy is used to denigrate groups of people, covertly, by attacking their use of language. For example, attitudes of superior intellect and/or morality are exhibited toward those with urban dialects, such as ‘Ebonics’ or regional ones like many variants of those in the Southern United States. People are misconceived because of the way they speak. They are assumed to be stupid, smart, nice, untrustworthy, etc,…depending on the stereotypes associated with their respective dialects.
Some people state that different dialects are unintelligible, but that isn’t true. It’s more likely those making that statement aren’t willing to listen in the first place, probably because of prejudices. In Linguistics, languages are separate when they are not mutually intelligible where as dialects are from the same language, because they are mutually intellitble despite some variances in vocabulary and grammar use.
Even before I began my studies in the MA TESOL program, and after I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English, prescriptive grammarians who corrected others with a tone of supremacy have always annoyed me. No one deserves to be self-righteous and I state this at the risk of seeming so.
On a lighter note, here is a little personal anecdote:
One time, my brother’s girlfriend did just that to me when I used the vernacular in a casual conversation while hanging out with my blue-collar-trucker family. She straightened her posture, stuck her nose up, corrected me and said, “Miss English Major,” as if she were smarter than me because she corrected my grammar and didn’t have a degree in English.
My grandparents, who are not known to really use or condone profanity, were present, but I neglected to monitor my word choice when I said, “I’m not writing an essay or giving a speech, so I don’t give a fuck.” I realized I had dropped the f-bomb in front of my grandparents and turned red. However, I noticed that my grandmother, who is more likely to be offended by the use of obscenities, smiled, turned her head away, covered her mouth and stifled her laughter.