this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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Yeah, I think this is a pretty shitty way to behave on a website with a large number of non-native English speakers.
I think the real shitty part is the English itself, not letter changes.
We could do the nice thing and make an easier language the standard? Spanish maybe? Could also do German. /s
I vote for a Klingon/Dothraki hybrid for the global language.
Do you think it's shitty for black people in America to use African American English dialect on public forums where non-native speakers could see it? Same deal, just different levels of familiarity. Nothing is forcing anyone to engage with this post, but a lot of people seem to feel a strong enough desire to enforce social conformity that they go out of their way to complain about someone doing something different.
No. Not same deal. One is dialect with slang, which is readable, and which you can just easily look up if you don't know.
The other is using letters that even most native English speakers can't parse.
Also, comparing this person's nonsense to an ethnic group's way of speaking is highly offensive. I hope you realize that.
I couldn't read OP's post so I looked it up and now I can. All it takes is a little effort, which if you're not willing to expend you can simply move on.
Sure African American English (which is not just slang, but an entire dialect with a different set of grammatical rules) is common and recognizable to most native English speakers now, but there was a time when it was just as inscrutable to them as OP's post.
I get that you think you're being progressive by getting offended on others' behalf, but all you're really doing is using that ethnic group's struggle as a rhetorical device to shame me for having a dissenting opinion. I am comparing them because they are alike in a way that is relevant to my point, not because I think they are identical.
What the ever-loving fuck are you talking about?
I vaguely recall you saying you were Jewish in an earlier comment, if you're actually black then I apologize. If not then perhaps you can try asking someone who is African American if they find what I said "highly offensive."
You see OP's use of Old English as worthy of derision, so you interpreted my comparison as belittling towards AME. I don't share your aversion to esoteric forms of expression, so my comparison is entirely without malice.
Yes. I am Jewish. And being from a minority ethnic group, one with more than one language that has developed due to centuries of forced isolation and relocation (Yiddish and Ladino), I know what it's like for people of privilege to take your particular ethnic language and use it to make points that have nothing to do with it.
It has nothing to do with "being progressive" and everything to do with having been in this position myself, so I know why it's offensive.
Thank you for explaining, I'm sorry for being insensitive. I already explained that I meant no disrespect towards AME. I disagree that the point I made has nothing to do with it. AME was at one time esoteric among the general US population, and that is the only way I'm saying that AME and OP's use of Old English letters are alike.
I don't think we'll agree on this point, but I do appreciate the apology. Thank you.
Is merely using AME as a comparison insensitive or are you just being polite?
I thought you were saying you support allowing many types of language and would not restrict any on this site, which doesn't seem insensitive.
I think they meant they were being insensitive by claiming I was just virtue signalling. Which is fair enough. They apologized.