Posts Tagged ‘language’
Goddammit
Really? We’re still banning books? Or are we BACK to banning books? Because “To Kill A Mockingbird” is a great book. While it is possible that the same issues/values can be learned from another book, this is a damn good one. Language makes you uncomfortable? Banning books makes ME uncomfortable.
EDIT: the book wasn’t BANNED per se. It was “removed” from the reading list. Still annoyed.
UPDATE: I read some of the responses to the story on Twitter. My replies are below.
I actually never liked To Kill a Mockingbird. Thought Atticus was paternalistic & just at the bare minimum of seeing black people as human.
— Ebony Taylor (@ebony_taylor94) October 14, 2017
Fine. As long as you aren’t saying that therefore the book shouldn’t be read. I don’t think that’s what the person is saying but if so, she misses the point. Let’s say you think this about Atticus. (I don’t but whatever.) USE THAT AS A JUMPING OFF POINT FOR DISCUSSION. If I recall correctly, Atticus’ stance was startling because of where he was in that particular era. But seriously, PLEASE disagree. Let’s talk about it.
To Kill a Mockingbird makes me VERY UNCOMFORTABLE TOO, it literally says ALL white people are racists. Not true!
— Tony (@Tony_Artza) October 14, 2017
Heh.
if to kill a mockingbird makes you uncomfortable you should probably be reading to kill a mockingbird.
— Nick Orsini (@NickOrsini) October 14, 2017
Low hanging fruit but OK.
Progress is built on a steep incline and we backslide fast. Books like To Kill A Mockingbird are there to lift us when we need it. Like now. https://t.co/1GeBsQFKkH
— Michael Green (@andmichaelgreen) October 14, 2017
I don’t know about the “lift us when we need it” stuff. But backsliding? Oh yeah.
To Kill a Mockingbird: The book to read is not the one that thinks for you, but the one that makes you think. #SaturdayMorning pic.twitter.com/074TD8iuMO
— Jerry Mitchell (@JMitchellNews) October 14, 2017
Biloxi administrators pulled the novel from the 8th-grade curriculum after the district received complaints that some of the book’s language “makes people uncomfortable.”
Related articles (Note: These are offsite links; DaddyTips takes no responsibility for outside content.)
New Language Began With Baby-Talk
Here is a fascinating article in The New York Times about a new language, Light Warlpiri, which is spoken by a relatively small group of Australian Aboriginal people. Everyone who speaks it is younger than 35 years old. And it began with baby-talk.
From the Times:
There are many dying languages in the world. But at least one has recently been born, created by children living in a remote village in northern Australia.
Carmel O’Shannessy, a linguist at the University of Michigan, has been studying the young people’s speech for more than a decade and has concluded that they speak neither a dialect nor the mixture of languages called a creole, but a new language with unique grammatical rules.
Here is a video, “Monster Story in Light Warlpiri Child39”, from Dr. Carmel O’Shannessy’s YouTube account.
So what’s this about baby-talk? Again, from the Times: Read more »
