Nerds. Nerds EVERYWHERE...

[Spike13]

I find nothing wrong with compilations of previous essays or blog posts being put together and sold as a book, as long as it is advertised as such.

The big dig at PZ was that his opus was supposed to be all new content, and what was presented was dusted off squid blog emissions .

[welch]

I'm nowhere near as linguistically sophisticated as are many 'Pitters who speak two or more languages, since I'm fluent only in one. I have no particular gifts in recognizing, or sensitivities to, tone or pitch (apart from hyperacusis, which is NOT a gift), but nevertheless, I can distinguish at least three different regional accents for, say, African-Americans within the state of Louisiana:

1) New Orleans (its own planet, really) - there are probably neighborhood/socioeconomic differences in accent and usage as well, which I can't distinguish
2) Northwest Louisiana, e.g. Shreveport area - will sound similar to an East Texas accent (loads of different accents within Texas)
3) Eastern Louisiana - will have more of a Mississippi/Deep South influence

It's fucking impossible that I'm the only person who has noticed such differences. Also, I think if you listened to recordings of a random sample of the young women in my high school graduating class - magnet school, representative of urban/suburban neighborhoods across Houston - you couldn't distinguish which voice belonged to someone of primarily Vietnamese, Korean, Iranian, African, Mexican, Colombian, Czech, German, etc. heritage. Betcha.

I love the people who say "southern accent" like there's only one, and everyone in "the south" speaks it.

[TiBo]

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as linguists call it, does indeed exist as a dialect spoken by most black people in North America, forming a dialect continuum from full AAVE to General American influenced by AAVE. Far from a bastardized form of modern English, it's developed alongside other forms of English in parallel since the days of trans-Atlantic slavery and has less geographical variation than other modern forms of American English.

Despite what one might think about its aesthetics, it's as worthy an English dialect as any other.

Are we talking abou the same thing ?

I'm talking about the "language" that sets itself apart from "General American English" by principles such as the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes, adressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga", adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences, pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me), cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand), the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking), a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly ... and so on.

If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

[BarnOwl]

And now for a KYOOT interlude, courtesy of Zooborns:

http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2014/0 ... -cubs.html

Ridiculously adorable. And for the felinophiles, the preceding article features gorgeous black-footed cat kittens.

[Old_ones]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

Wow. Are these people capable of enjoying anything without bringing identity politics into it? Talk about having a totalitarian mindset.

If you stop listening to music you enjoy because of the race of the people making it, you didn't deserve that music in the first place.

[welch]

I'm nowhere near as linguistically sophisticated as are many 'Pitters who speak two or more languages, since I'm fluent only in one. I have no particular gifts in recognizing, or sensitivities to, tone or pitch (apart from hyperacusis, which is NOT a gift), but nevertheless, I can distinguish at least three different regional accents for, say, African-Americans within the state of Louisiana:

1) New Orleans (its own planet, really) - there are probably neighborhood/socioeconomic differences in accent and usage as well, which I can't distinguish
2) Northwest Louisiana, e.g. Shreveport area - will sound similar to an East Texas accent (loads of different accents within Texas)
3) Eastern Louisiana - will have more of a Mississippi/Deep South influence

It's fucking impossible that I'm the only person who has noticed such differences. Also, I think if you listened to recordings of a random sample of the young women in my high school graduating class - magnet school, representative of urban/suburban neighborhoods across Houston - you couldn't distinguish which voice belonged to someone of primarily Vietnamese, Korean, Iranian, African, Mexican, Colombian, Czech, German, etc. heritage. Betcha.

That's exactly the type of clinical test that'd provide an answer to my belief that one can tell race from voice. (I'm not the only one.) I could be wrong -- there may be other explanations.

On the general subject, I have a close friend from Alabama, one from Kentucky, two from North Carolina, and one from Dallas, plus a former personal assistant from Red Stick. I've developed an ability to roughly place a Southern US accent. In California, you also encounter an "Oakie" accent, which is rural and passed down from emigrants from the South. It sounds like someone trying to fake a hillbilly accent, but it's for real.

In the greater Boston area, you can distinguish numerous micro-accents. I used to work with a guy from the North Shore, and none of us could make out what he was saying. One time, he said, "Aftah wuhhk, we ahhta go tuh thah bahh fuh a bahh.' Bahh for a Bahh? Are you a fucking sheep?

You can have SO much fun down here if you have someone else who lived up in boston for a while.

"Hey deb, whatcha doin' afta work?
Gonna go down to the packy, they got a sale on sam!
Oh sammy, that shit's wicked pissah good
Oh I know, I'll do that, then maybe grab the kids and get some ice cream with extra jimmes on it
Oh man, I love jimmies, especially the chocolate ones
Who doesn't. What about you?
I'm goin' to the bah, gonna watch the sawx
Be careful going home, fuckin' staties'll get you
Ain't that the truth."

People would just STARE at us, they had no fucking clue what we were talking about.

[welch]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

It's pretty fucking racist and condescending to start listening to music you don't normally care for, just because the singers are black.

If Banders actually liked music from whatever genre he's listening to now (that has all the black artists in it), surely he would have come across some black singers he likes before this?

Maybe he really is a reformed Klansman, as Elyse implies. :bjarte:

The whole situation reminds one of christian rap.

"I'm so glad Johnny stopped listening to those funky beats and mad rhymes about fucking the police, and has started listening to our mad christian rhymes and funky beats about worshiping Jesus!"

Or he may have liked middle of the road classical, which is pretty much a honkyfest.

[welch]

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as linguists call it, does indeed exist as a dialect spoken by most black people in North America, forming a dialect continuum from full AAVE to General American influenced by AAVE. Far from a bastardized form of modern English, it's developed alongside other forms of English in parallel since the days of trans-Atlantic slavery and has less geographical variation than other modern forms of American English.

Despite what one might think about its aesthetics, it's as worthy an English dialect as any other.

Are we talking abou the same thing ?

I'm talking about the "language" that sets itself apart from "General American English" by principles such as the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes, adressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga", adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences, pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me), cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand), the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking), a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly ... and so on.

If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

yes, yes mr. buckley.

[Old_ones]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

Beware "Honey Banders", in the future you will be permitted only one kind of movie...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2699/426 ... 9c4ca5.jpg

[Spike13]

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as linguists call it, does indeed exist as a dialect spoken by most black people in North America, forming a dialect continuum from full AAVE to General American influenced by AAVE. Far from a bastardized form of modern English, it's developed alongside other forms of English in parallel since the days of trans-Atlantic slavery and has less geographical variation than other modern forms of American English.

Despite what one might think about its aesthetics, it's as worthy an English dialect as any other.

Are we talking abou the same thing ?

I'm talking about the "language" that sets itself apart from "General American English" by principles such as the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes, adressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga", adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences, pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me), cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand), the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking), a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly ... and so on.

If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

But what you are talking about is not an exclusive "black thing" .
The lower classes of any race have their dropped letters and place filler phrases of speech.
My state of New Jersey was once known as the land of no r's ( boids-birds ,woik -work)

To the people born into speaking it, that style of speech is a mark of pride,even if it condemns many of them into a gibberish induced serfdom.

[Skep tickle]

At Pharyngula, blog post titled: "Girl criticizes math ability of old man"
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... f-old-man/

Opens with:

But…but…everyone knows that girls suck at math. So how can Christie Wilcox batter George Will’s out-of-his-ass math calculation so thoroughly? This cannot be. ...

Really, PZ? Calling a 29-year-old woman a "girl" just so you can pull out that stereotype - what, do you think it'll somehow show what a good feminist man/ally you are, helped along by your jumping on the latest outrage-bandwagon?

[TiBo]

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as linguists call it, does indeed exist as a dialect spoken by most black people in North America, forming a dialect continuum from full AAVE to General American influenced by AAVE. Far from a bastardized form of modern English, it's developed alongside other forms of English in parallel since the days of trans-Atlantic slavery and has less geographical variation than other modern forms of American English.

Despite what one might think about its aesthetics, it's as worthy an English dialect as any other.

Are we talking abou the same thing ?

I'm talking about the "language" that sets itself apart from "General American English" by principles such as the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes, adressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga", adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences, pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me), cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand), the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking), a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly ... and so on.

If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

yes, yes mr. buckley.

Who be dat ?

[Skep tickle]

And now for a KYOOT interlude, courtesy of Zooborns:

http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2014/0 ... -cubs.html

Ridiculously adorable. And for the felinophiles, the preceding article features gorgeous black-footed cat kittens.

Awwwwwww!

[Spike13]

I'm assuming Welch meant William F Bucklley

[another lurker]

Fantasy is happening...

Inside your brain is a reality...

[Matt Cavanaugh]

You can have SO much fun down here if you have someone else who lived up in boston for a while.

"Hey deb, whatcha doin' afta work?
Gonna go down to the packy, they got a sale on sam!
Oh sammy, that shit's wicked pissah good
Oh I know, I'll do that, then maybe grab the kids and get some ice cream with extra jimmes on it
Oh man, I love jimmies, especially the chocolate ones
Who doesn't. What about you?
I'm goin' to the bah, gonna watch the sawx
Be careful going home, fuckin' staties'll get you
Ain't that the truth."

People would just STARE at us, they had no fucking clue what we were talking about.

I still call it a "packy run." I love jimmies! Especially on Carvel. (That's the Connecticut.)

But now, thanks to hanging out with my friend from Alabama, I say, "I'm fixin' to make a packy run." And, under the influence of my Louisiana assistant, I'll add: "after I make groceries." Then I'll do the warsh.

Na ja, jut -- I'm a mongrel, wa?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Despite what one might think about its aesthetics, it's as worthy an English dialect as any other.

Are we talking abou the same thing ?
...
If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

'ave a butcher at wot yer sayin', china.

[TiBo]

Are we talking abou the same thing ?

I'm talking about the "language" that sets itself apart from "General American English" by principles such as the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes, adressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga", adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences, pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me), cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand), the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking), a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly ... and so on.

If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

But what you are talking about is not an exclusive "black thing" .
The lower classes of any race have their dropped letters and place filler phrases of speech.
My state of New Jersey was once known as the land of no r's ( boids-birds ,woik -work)

To the people born into speaking it, that style of speech is a mark of pride,even if it condemns many of them into a gibberish induced serfdom.

Certainly true, but hardly the point of my argument - "Normally", we try to teach members of all classes a common language, which is a major hallmark of general education, and we don't glorify the crudest forms of language found in a population as something which is to be embraced and shielded from criticism - especially not when a strong social stigma is attached to the use of that type of language.

[WaxNapoleon]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

[youtube]W-n5vG2SjJY[/youtube]

[jugheadnaut]

At Pharyngula, blog post titled: "Girl criticizes math ability of old man"
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... f-old-man/

Opens with:

But…but…everyone knows that girls suck at math. So how can Christie Wilcox batter George Will’s out-of-his-ass math calculation so thoroughly? This cannot be. ...

Really, PZ? Calling a 29-year-old woman a "girl" just so you can pull out that stereotype - what, do you think it'll somehow show what a good feminist man/ally you are, helped along by your jumping on the latest outrage-bandwagon?

In her article Christie Wilcox isn't correcting math, she's just using her preferred set of statistics while misrepresenting the statistics that Will's source is using.

She's first claiming the number Will is using for reporting sexual assault to law enforcement at OSU Columbus (98 over 4 years) is low because it only includes on-campus assault, and she has a study that claims only 33.7% of rapes occur on campus. After making the assumption that the 33.7% figure is true for sexual assault as well as rape, she comes up with an estimate of 291 as the estimated number of OSU women who reported sexual assault to law enforcement. But Will's source makes clear that the 98 figure includes not only on-campus assaults but also in university residence halls, on nearby non-campus property, and on public property adjacent to campus. No doubt this accounts for a much, much higher percentage of sexual assaults than 33.7%.

Then she's claiming the 12% reporting rate figure (used by the White House report, no less) for college sexual assault is too high, and here things really goes off the rails. As it turns out, the White House report is misreporting this statistic since its source is clear this is for rape, not sexual assault. Wilcox again finds her own study, the same one as in the previous point, that claims a reporting rate of 5% for rape and attempted rape. As far as I can tell, we really have no idea what the reporting rate is for sexual assault. But that's how she comes up with her figure that is consistent with the 1 in 5 college women are sexually assaulted. In a nutshell, she botches one statistic and then simply substitutes her own figure for one she doesn't like. Nothing to do with math.

She then accuses Will of motivated reasoning and lack of critical thinking, which may very well be true, but it goes double for her. When the numbers didn't "add up" (her words) to the figure she prefers, Will just accepted it, but she started looking for statistics to torture to make sure it would add up to the right number.

And is there any chance Peezus actually applied any critical thinking to this? Hell, no. It bolstered his narrative and made a conservative writer look innumerate, and that was good enough. And it must have gotten his animal spirits bubbling, because he then followed with an insane rant about how Republicans are getting stupider due to generations of selection for stupidity.

[Skep tickle]

Skepchickcon is coming. I dunno when it happened, but there's more info up on the website than last time I looked.

Emphasis added:

This year, in addition to more science panels and Sandboxes (interactive workshops) than ever before, we are opening up our track room all day every day for ongoing small group and individual science and art activities and salons with the Skepchicks, Freethought Bloggers, and special guests.

Plus, every night, you can meet the Skepchicks and other scientists and skeptics in the Skepchick Space Lab party room, where we’ll have more info on science and skepticism as well as delicious chemistry demonstrations by mixologist Anne Sauer.

...

We don’t charge admission to the panels, activities, or workshops, and we don’t get a cut of ticket sales from CONvergence, so 100% of the cost of flying in guests and putting them up in the hotel is covered by donations. We also use the funds we raise to print up informational flyers, purchase activity supplies, and host the nightly after-hours Skepchick room where all CONvergence attendees can stop by and find out more about science and skepticism.

The "guests" who are having 100% of their airfare & hotel covered by donations must only be a small % of the 43 people listed on the Speakers page, which includes many of the familiar FTB conference presenters & a bunch of Skepchicks & affiliated folk (MadArtLab, etc). There's no way they're getting enough donations to cover those costs for more than a couple of people.

PZ's bio on that page is really quite funny, IMO. (For real.) And Elyse seems to be absent, though her name had been on the list of speakers back before - and for a little while after - her public breakup with Rebecca.

The speaker list shows some creativity in gathering all those people to give such a science-heavy schedule of sessions. For example, the Myers family - Mary, Paul Z, and Skatje - are together offering the workshop on owl scat ("Bones"). There are also a couple of not-so-clearly-science topics that play to the speakers' strengths and expand the offerings - like sessions on fiction that subverts the gender binary, how to cope with food allergies at CONvergence, art as therapy, non-monogamous relationship structures, artist egos, "show us your ugly things" (bad art), expressing fandom through crafting, and so on.

(I'm not making any of this up.)

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Live in a bunch of different cities for a few years and pay attention to how folks talk rather than how you think they talk. The difference, for example, between boston and miami. Or boston and kansas city. Hell, even tampa and miami.

this is not some kind of "all de bbllack people be talkin' lak dis" shit. Even within a given area, you're going to see variations. You see the same thing with "non-black" accents. Black people are not somehow immune to regional variations in accents. It's also not 'ugly' nor is it 'pretty'. It seems to work rather well for the only real purpose language has: to communicate with other people. Other than that, who gives a fuck.

My best friend in Florida was a black guy. He was a walking stereotype, too. Wife-beater shirts, baggy pants, a kind of swaying in his walk. Drove a huge ass Oldsmobile and lived in a very poor area of St Pete. He had a marvelous voice, and for some reason a very elegant and distinguished British accent. Born and raised in Florida, with Floridian parents, and yet sounded like David Attenborough. I really miss the guy.

In other news, we just finished repainting our living-room. Now, let's start the corridor...

[James Caruthers]

So I heard that AVfM conference was canceled? Anyone hear more about that? Anything from Paul Elam?

Also, I found this image and laughed.

http://media.tumblr.com/837434ff1a700c0 ... r8n5l3.png

[James Caruthers]

Oh, and HoneyBanders is the world's most masochistic submissive.

[Konrad_Cruze]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

Dear SJWs I'm confused. Am I allowed to like "A message to You Rudy by the specials"?

[Kirbmarc]

I'm talking about the "language" that sets itself apart from "General American English" by principles such as the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes, addressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga", adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences, pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me), cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand), the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking), a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly ... and so on.

If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

Linguist here. There's no such thing as a "bastardization" of a language, because there is no "pure" language. English is a "bastard" mix of Anglo-Saxon, Franco-Norman, Latin and Old Danish. Its American variant was influenced by Spanish, Creole French, several Native languages, German, Swedish and Finnish (the Minnesota accent), Chinese (for example, the structure "long time no see"), Yiddsh (chutzpah, schmaltzy, schlub, etc.) and several other languages.

As for the specific points you make:

the crude reduction to 3 temporal causes

It carries on a long process of simplification that already reduced the number of temporal cases during time. Old English used to have more than 20 of them. They disappeared over time.

Languages tend to simplify themselves, especially in a society where speed of communication and effective and easy speech trump formality.

addressing people as either "man", "fool", "bitch", or "nigga"

Your complaint reminds me of the words "dude" (which derives from the Irish dùd, fool, and used to be an insult) and pal (which is a English bastard form of a Romany word whose meaning was "my comrade, my man") and "buddy" (which is a "bastard" corruption of "brother). Those are all informal terms of address widely used in General American English.

Informal terms of address are often based on insults. It's a way to break the ice and let others know you are a part of their group, and therefore you can be trusted. Insufferable linguists like me call these elements "group markers". Guess what? Every group have them. Even over-educated academics.

adding meaningless phrases like "ya know'm sayin'?" to the end of sentences

Just like Standard American English adds meaningless phrases like "is it?" or "isn't it?" to the end of sentences. The function of these "meaningless phrases" is always the same: to make sure that the person you're talking to is actually listening to you (we smug Ivory tower types call this the "phatic" function).

pulling together parts of modal verbs (wanna,gonna, instead of want to, going to), connecting modal verbs to subjects (lemme, instead of let me)

You mean like those awful "contractions" that connect negative adverbs to auxiliaries (don't instead of do not) and even modal verbs (shouldn't instead of should not)? ;)

In both cases, the reason for those linguistic changes is the same: they allow speaker to speak faster and not focus on "empty words" words who carry little semantic meaning. (i.e.adverbs, prepositions, pronouns).

cutting off words arbitrarily (han, instead of hand)

Standard American English speakers did that, too. Just think about the last time you said "exam" instead of "examination", or "fax" instead of "facsimile" (and so on, and so forth). It's called "clipping". Why do speakers do that? Again, a need for simplicity and speed.

the inability to articulate "th" or "sk" sounds at the end of syllables (birf, axing, instead of birth, asking)

Standard American English is already plagued by the inability to properly articulate the "hw" sound, and this is why "wine" and "whine" sound exactly the same. Pronunciation is not a sacred gifts from the god of language. It evolves through time, like any linguistic feature.

a complete disregard for spelling any known words correctly

I'm horrified by the American disease that causes people to drop the "u" letter in oh so many words (like colour, honour, flavour, etc). And what's the matter with those damn Yanks and their "Z" fetishism? It's "analyse", not "analyze", thank you very much. To say nothing of the "bastardisation" of the spelling of "doughnut" into "donut". Or the weird habit to invert the "r"s and the "e" at the end of certain words ("center" instead of "centre" and "theater" instead of "theatre").

More seriously: spelling is no sacred cow. It changes through time, and it tends to mirror changes in pronunciation or (again) to simplify words that are hard to spell.

I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

[/quote]

This probably says more about your biases than about the nature of the AAVE. I don't think they're racist biases, mind. They're more likely based on class differences, negative stereotypes of highly informal speech and the idea that the Standard American English variant is a more valuable way of communication. They're not necessarily your own personal biases: they're reinforced by formal education, peer pressure and other social factors.

There's nothing wrong with having biases. We all have them. The trick is to realize (oh my god, a z!) that you have them.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

OMG STAP EDUCATIONING US!!!

[Kirbmarc]

OMG STAP EDUCATIONING US!!!

Couldn't help myself, I'm sorry. My inner nerd is a horrible beast to tame. On a lighter note,

For example, the Myers family - Mary, Paul Z, and Skatje - are together offering the workshop on owl scat ("Bones").

Are we witnessing the birth of the next Pharyngula fetish?

[windy]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

I also want to support coloured musicians so I have decided to only listen to Norwegian Black Metal from now on. And KISS.

[Badger3k]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

WTF is she talking about?!?!? How do you avoid Motown? The blues? Santana?

And what does she consider an "old" male? Something Clapton or The Beatles did when they were under 30?

What a stupid cunt. Why is she tweeting, anyway? Shouldn't she be finding a job or leaving her kid at a firehouse or something?

I grew up in music from the 30s on up. Motown was big, not as much Jazz, but I got a lot of the older stuff from the Big Band era. I made a post listing all that I listen to and found out I'd run out of room. My tastes have expanded thanks to the internet and youTube and the like, and I have a lot of foreign music - quite a lot I can't understand, but the melodies and words are fantastic. I don't know if I've ever met anyone who just listened to one thing due to race - closest is hip-hop but the kids liked the musician or rapper and the color or race didn't matter from what I could tell. Maybe I just live a sheltered existence?

[Grwd]

Internalized racism...? Is her husband a black man? Sorry, husband of color...?

[Badger3k]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

Now that he has thrown off the shackles of internalized racism, he can praise all the new music in his life with ebonics.

Crap - don't give them ideas...or maybe we should. I can't wait to see the tweets about how they find rap music "empowering" or whatever the SJW term is, although that may border on appropriating, so can you like other kinds of music without being to open or liking it too much?

[Badger3k]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

I also want to support coloured musicians so I have decided to only listen to Norwegian Black Metal from now on. And KISS.

I just picked up some Axxis - is that good enough? (hows that for a multi-topical reference)

[jimthepleb]

Despite what one might think about its aesthetics, it's as worthy an English dialect as any other.

Are we talking abou the same thing ?
...
If that's what we both mean, then the word "worthy" seems misplaced.
I call that a bastardisation of the language, and I call it particularly ugly.

'ave a butcher at wot yer sayin', china.

Mr Van Dyke! I have been enjoying Diagnosis Murder. Merry Pawwwpins less so. :)

[Tony Parsehole]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

Amazing.

[rayshul]

...

So SJWs are incredibly fucked up.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

...

So SJWs are incredibly fucked up.

The Earth is a pheroid
The sky looks blue
Dolphins are assholes
Deadpool rules.

Any other obvious facts?

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

*spheroid

sface spalm!

[rayshul]

...

So SJWs are incredibly fucked up.

The Earth is a pheroid
The sky looks blue
Dolphins are assholes
Deadpool rules.

Any other obvious facts?

Sometimes when faced with the real fucking highlights of their perversity - see Elyse's comments - I just have nothing more to say except the obvious.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

You don't say!

[Opyt]

welch:
I proved my point as a member of the general American public, even if you were too busy trying to butcher me to catch it.

And that was a fascinating bit on language Kirbmarc.

Phil:
You missed that cats are evil, and the MPAA are synonymous with the pond scum a catfish won't eat.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Phil:
You missed that cats are evil, and the MPAA are synonymous with the pond scum a catfish won't eat.

I have the privilege of having three cats generously host me in their flat. I've met slimey thing hanging under low tree branches that were more evil than a cat.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I can has grammar?

[BarnOwl]

Skepchickcon is coming. I dunno when it happened, but there's more info up on the website than last time I looked.

Emphasis added:

This year, in addition to more science panels and Sandboxes (interactive workshops) than ever before, we are opening up our track room all day every day for ongoing small group and individual science and art activities and salons with the Skepchicks, Freethought Bloggers, and special guests.

Plus, every night, you can meet the Skepchicks and other scientists and skeptics in the Skepchick Space Lab party room, where we’ll have more info on science and skepticism as well as delicious chemistry demonstrations by mixologist Anne Sauer.

...

We don’t charge admission to the panels, activities, or workshops, and we don’t get a cut of ticket sales from CONvergence, so 100% of the cost of flying in guests and putting them up in the hotel is covered by donations. We also use the funds we raise to print up informational flyers, purchase activity supplies, and host the nightly after-hours Skepchick room where all CONvergence attendees can stop by and find out more about science and skepticism.

The "guests" who are having 100% of their airfare & hotel covered by donations must only be a small % of the 43 people listed on the Speakers page, which includes many of the familiar FTB conference presenters & a bunch of Skepchicks & affiliated folk (MadArtLab, etc). There's no way they're getting enough donations to cover those costs for more than a couple of people.

PZ's bio on that page is really quite funny, IMO. (For real.) And Elyse seems to be absent, though her name had been on the list of speakers back before - and for a little while after - her public breakup with Rebecca.

The speaker list shows some creativity in gathering all those people to give such a science-heavy schedule of sessions. For example, the Myers family - Mary, Paul Z, and Skatje - are together offering the workshop on owl scat ("Bones"). There are also a couple of not-so-clearly-science topics that play to the speakers' strengths and expand the offerings - like sessions on fiction that subverts the gender binary, how to cope with food allergies at CONvergence, art as therapy, non-monogamous relationship structures, artist egos, "show us your ugly things" (bad art), expressing fandom through crafting, and so on.

(I'm not making any of this up.)

Not a very diverse bunch, really, and most of them sound boring, even though they're all "voracious readers" who "devour books."

Also, dyeing your hair weird colors does not make you a person of color. Doesn't make you interesting, either.

[Guest]

Yeah, that's not brainwashy at all. It's like when someone gets born-again and stops consuming "worldly" media. I.e., creepy.

Now that he has thrown off the shackles of internalized racism, he can praise all the new music in his life with ebonics.

What will she tweet when he figures out it's racism that he is married to an old white woman, and needs to get a young WOC?

[Mr Radio]

What will she tweet when he figures out it's racism that he is married to an old white woman, and needs to get a young WOC?

A rationalization, like they always do.

[Apples]

Surly Amy is one exceedingly dumb, trailer-trash piece of shit.

http://stokereport.s3.amazonaws.com/12c ... ef86cb.jpg

[JayTeeAitch]

Good to see Elyse attempting to shore up the family financial problems:

She's attending a female* comedy workshop, can't wait :bjarte:

*Is this not trans exclusive**?

**I added the * to the initial 'female', so it's not an inclusive marker***

***I also added the previous 2 ** etc

[Tribble]

You mean the author of the Peezus like cut and paste book Liberal Fascism? I've read enough of him to know that the only reason he's a right wing pundit is because he was shat from the fetid blue waffle of Lucianne Goldberg.

He is the classic 'boss's son.'

[Tribble]

Oakland, CA school district proposed creating an ESL (English as a Second Language) program for its black students, who make up a plurality of that student body. That would have entailed teaching Biology, History, Geometry, Home Ec -- you name it -- all in urban black slang (a.k.a. "Ebonics"). It was an insane idea.

I remember that. Was a hell of a shit-storm.

[Kirbmarc]

Oakland, CA school district proposed creating an ESL (English as a Second Language) program for its black students, who make up a plurality of that student body. That would have entailed teaching Biology, History, Geometry, Home Ec -- you name it -- all in urban black slang (a.k.a. "Ebonics"). It was an insane idea.

Not to mention racist, because it implicitly assumes that a) that all their black student speak Ebonics and only Ebonics, which they don't b) that even if they do, that they're in the same position of a foreign student whose first language isn't English, which obviously isn't true.

Even if both of these racist assumptions were true, Ebonics is an informal variation of spoken English. It's pretty stupid to use it in formal teaching, when it's not used in any other formal context.

[Southern]

And what does she consider an "old" male? Something Clapton or The Beatles did when they were under 30?

Yeah, that stuck out to me. Pop music by its very nature has always been a young man's game.

Also fuck anyone who tries to get someone else to throw out things that are important to them. That's some Scientology bullshit.

From the last couple of years, Top 40 pop music is mostly strictly a chick's game. Kate Perry, Kesha, Gaga, Jessie J, Pink, Adelle, Nicki Minaj, the list goes on and on and on, with only a few males (or something that barely qualified as male, like prepubescent Biebs) breaking through now and then.

[Tribble]

I haven't read Liberal Fascism so I can't defend it. But I know for a fact it's not a collection of blog posts or previous writings. From what left-wing fever swamp did you read a review that said that? But that statement is so ignorant I think it's more likely you're mis-remembering some other criticism, like extensive use of quotations.

Your second sentence gives me all I need to know about the nature and quality of your opinion on Jonah Goldberg.

It's six degrees of Kevin Bacon that, through the use of logical fallacy, ineptitude, partisan-hackery and gross incompetence made Liberals Nazi/Fascist supporters.

[Tribble]

I find nothing wrong with compilations of previous essays or blog posts being put together and sold as a book, as long as it is advertised as such.

The big dig at PZ was that his opus was supposed to be all new content, and what was presented was dusted off squid blog emissions .

I agree. He spent years telling us how he was writing his book. He even took a sabbatical to make progress on it. Then when it comes to publication day, the 'fifth horseman of atheism,' gives us a collection of slightly edited blog-posts.

[Southern]

Right, the first thing I start thinking about when I hear a new piece of music is ALWAYS "I really need to find out what color of skin this musician has!"... because you know, I'm absolutely NOT a racists, and it would be horrible if I accidentally heard a Eminem song when I tried listening to some new rap, or if some Jimmy Hendrix got mixed in with the Led Zeppelin playlist! And boy, when I hear Michael Jackson, my brain just shut down, gotta avoid that like the plague!

How does these people survive? I mean, sure, great, you're trying out new music, that's good... oh wait you're selecting based of skin-color? YOU'RE A MORON!

If you suddenly realize that you've been only listening to white music because you're a closet racists, the solution isn't to start listening to only music by "people of color", but to stop worrying about what tone of skins the musicians have and just listening to the damn music! How fucking hard can this be?!

You should listen to more Black music:

[youtube]KY44zvhWhp4[/youtube]

Instead of misoginistic White (ok, ok, Mixed-racial) music:

[youtube]O5-c79LQ3aM[/youtube]

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Again:

[youtube]M8PAuvxCZuM[/youtube]

[Southern]

...

So SJWs are incredibly fucked up.

The Earth is a pheroid
The sky looks blue
Dolphins are assholes
Deadpool rules.

Any other obvious facts?

[youtube]1axvj9vs1Xg[/youtube]

[Bhurzum]

You should listen to more Black music:

[youtube]S-l-c3rTlnE[/youtube]

Am I doing it right?

:mrgreen:

[Pitchguest]

A black man's reaction to not sounding like a black man:

[ROBOKiTTY]

Linguist here.

Another linguist! :clap:

Very nice post. :dance:

I would like to add that AAVE is far more nuanced than nonlinguists often make of it. Specifically, it makes certain syntactic distinctions that most other forms of American English do not.

For example, AAVE distinguishes between many temporal tenses and aspects as follows:

I been worked means "I worked in the distant past".

I done work means "I worked in the recent past".

I done been work means "Until recently, I worked for a long period of time".

I did work means "I worked just now".

I'm a-working means "I'm going to work immediately".

I'm a-gonna work means "I'm going to work at some point in the non-immediate future".

I gonna work means "I'm going to work at an unspecified point in the future".

I be working Mondays means "I habitually or frequently work on Mondays".

I stay working means "I'm always working".

I steady working means "I keep on working".

I finna work means "I'm about to work".

As you can see, the grammar is complex and self-consistent. You can't randomly string words together and expect to make sense, and a lot of computing in the brain is required to process this language.

Some of the features, like dropping copulas ('to be' and variants thereof) and simplifying consonant clusters and codas, are hallmarks of many of the world's languages. For example, Mandarin frequently drops copulas and has eliminated all consonant clusters and coda consonants (except nasals) from Middle Chinese. Is Mandarin a bastardization of Chinese? Actually, a lot of Cantonese and southern Chinese supremacists say it is, which just brings home the point that any language variety can be considered from another perspective to be a corruption of a purer form of the language.