[SpamCop-List] Re: 419 Humour

[Cat]

(follow-ups to .social)

Trish Roberts-Miller wrote:

> Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:09:46 +0000 (UTC) From: Marjolein Katsma 
> <nobody at spamcop.net> Subject: [SpamCop-List] Re: 419 Humour To: 
> spamcop-list at news.spamcop.net Message-ID: 
> <Xns94799012ABBC0homesitehelp at 216.154.195.61> Cat (nobody at spamcop.net) 
> wrote in news:buleq8$ca4$1 at news.spamcop.net: 
>>
> Far too much importance (and the wrong kind) is put on ineffective forms of
> teaching usage and spelling. (You don't actually mean grammar--that's 
> the wrong word.)
> Students don't learn it because of the way it is taught.
> 
> But there are so many myths out there about usage and spelling and how 
> they do
> and don't work that it's difficult to get effective reform in place.
> 
> It really is NOT rocket science--meaning learning grammar and usage is 
> not a question
> of figuring out laws of physics, but of being able to shift among dialects.
> 

Speaking of dialects, I'm from Mississippi. There are southern accents, 
and then there are redneck accents. Movies and tv often pick up on the 
redneck accent and paint the false picture that we all talk like a bunch 
of uneducated rednecks down here. Then when I meet people who aren't 
used to hearing a southern accent, they're always surprised and tell me 
that my southern accent isn't very thick.

> Usage and spelling are matters of convention--they're like manners.
> The convention varies from region to region, era to era, and rhetorical 
> situation to rhetorical situation.  

That's also where a lot of it happens. People learn by example, so being 
in certain environments makes it a lot harder for people to learn better 
grammar skills or to keep those better grammar skills in practice.

>>> Especially if someone is being excessively rude, it's amusing to pick
>>> up on that person's lack of grammar and spelling skills. 
>>
>>
> When someone is being rude, any stick'll do. 

Yeah, that was my original point. If someone is going to be excessively 
rude to me over petty issues, I'm not going to just sit and take the 
abuse. I'm going to fight back, often with "below the belt" comments if 
that person's comments warrant such a nasty response. Anyone who knows 
me well enough knows that I am one of the nicest, most caring and 
compassionate people in the world, but if anyone ever says or does 
something to really get on my bad side, run like hell. Of course, that 
caring and compassionate side of me usually tries to see the smallest 
bit of feelings and humanity in some of the meanest, rudest, most 
hurtful people I've ever come across.