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Personally, I'd have to agree with a lot of what is said here. However, I know I go into a slangish speech when I'm conversing with friends in a lighthearted manner, but I personally hate rap music as it currently is made today. I think some of the problem is that the media in general has latched onto this as a hip way to attract younger people. For instance, I just saw a PSP commercial that used this type of grammar, and while it annoys me, I can see how others would enjoy it, as something they can relate to in their personal teenage world. I think that the school system in general has allowed it to happen, either through not caring too much about it or fear of being seen as too strict.

Ebonics is kinda like the nice way to say "black talk". Like, in the bible, Jesus says, "I be he." That would be ebonics.

I agree with a lot of what I'm hearing. I think the media (Rap, etc) Is mainly to blame but it's really the childs fault, it's their choice to listen to it. I know kids who listen to music and I tried to listen in a bit and basicly it was a guy saying his gun was his friend and he shoots people...heh? I didn't understand why anyone would listen to it.

This is something I've had a number of arguments about, and had those with PhD's agree with me while those of lesser standing than that tend to disagree (and, being unlettered, I have only my own experiences to draw upon).

Slang is necessary to keep a language living. While there are acceptable limits to slang that are, in fact, well-defined from a linguistic standpoint--and which differentiate "slang" from "dialect". Ebonics, cockney, Amerang, Queen's English, Aussie, and Pidgin are all dialects of English. Words like "yo" are derivative of English, and the word "yo" in particular is a derivation of "hey-ho" which is in itself slang.

It should be noted that William Shakespeare himself used some 150 new words in his plays and sonnets, which do not appear in printed form prior to his use, but which are based in the same Latin and Greek roots that English is based in, using the same roots with the same meanings that they had in other words. As such, the meanings were almost instantly recognizeable by common speakers of the day, though the words themselves had not been heard before.

Slang is not a problem to me; however, I will agree that it is overused and that people should learn the proper use of English if they are going to be expected to speak it. The same is true of French, Russian, German, Icelandic... pretty much any language out there except the dead ones.

And even then, proper grammatical structure and the use of accepted terminology is pretty much the key to being understood.

And here we come into a nice little section on how biology affects language. Apologies in advance to anyone who thinks I'm sounding sexist, but these are based on nothing more than my own observations over the past 17 or so years of studying English in the US:

1) Females of the human species tend to adapt slang more readily than us males do.

2) Males tend to cling to the definitions of words far more than females do.

3) Teens tend to use exclusionary tactics as they break away from overly-domineering parents, and so adapt to slang far more readily than adults do.

With these three facts, I have found that this fits in perfectly with animal behavior in nature. Primarily, the following:

A) Females of any species (us humans included) tend to try to limit the number of partners they have at a subconscious level. Women pit men against each other and drive us to either excel or fail. This appears to be true of all animal species including humans.

B) Males of any species tend to adapt to the wishes of the females, becoming what they want or need so that they can "prove" that they are the correct genetic material to make offspring.

C) The young of all mammals (humans included) tend to try to leave the care of the parents as quickly as possible, to the point that some (most notably, bears) will actually attack their parents and either be driven off or drive their parents off.

Interesting, eh?

Last point, I promise, as I know this post is a lengthy one:

When we try to analyze the behavior of any group of people, we fall into patterns of behavior. I ran into a document one time from Ancient Greece, from around 500 BCE (2,500 years or so ago), which says that children lack basic morality, showing as proof that their music was too wild, their hair was too long, they lacked respect of their elders, their speech was full of contradictory euphamisms, and they dressed far too immodestly. And this from toga-wearing philosophers. We should learn to accept that things are different, and that they will be. That which adapts and changes survives; that which does not dies.

Dag yo, you all be trippin' ebonics is a vital part of the african culture...

Although, I am about the whitest person on the planet... so I only use ebonics around my friends when I feel like acting like an idiot.

Personally I use way too much slang, and swear like a sailor yet i don't listen to rap music or hip hop. Music can be a huge part of the way people choose to use which words they do, but on the other hand they don't have to use the word if they don't damn well mean to.


Oh... I think the downfall of language is SMS talk, or TXT TLK. God damn teenagers and their unwillingness to use vowels. WE HAVE VOWELS FOR A REASON! son of a b***h

I found this quote whilst browsing on the WOTC forums.
"'[F]o shizzle ma nizzle' is a bastardization of '[F]o' sheezy mah neezy' which is a bastardization of '[F]or sure mah *****' which is a bastdardization of "I concur with you whole[-]heartedly my African [A]merican brother[.]"
It apparently came from the AIM profile of cheeZe477.
Anyway, I greatly dislike people who use that type of slang, who constantly attempt to verbally abuse me.
In their jock(y) ways, they constantly ask me, "Do you like girls?"
I once replied, "I am heterosexual."
They replied, "So you're gay, right?"
Ergh.