"I find social media to be a soul sucking void of meaningless affirmation" - Wednesday Addams

[shadowkat]

Social media has been pissing me off today. It does occasionally. Mainly because I try to connect on it - and it doesn't always jive. Also, I've admittedly been irritable of late. A lot of suppressed anger that I can't do anything about. I am furious - but I can't kick or punch or scream at the people that I'm furious with. The good news is I'm not alone, a lot of other people are equally furious. Misery loves company and all that.

Latest? Twitter couldn't understand why people can't remember to use Jim and I went to the store, as opposed to me and Jim. And when I said that it's a rhythm thing - about how the other just sounds better. (Also I have an audio/visual type of dyslexia and tend to flip it and have to flip it back all the time - but I didn't lead with that.) The Twitter poster stated that it was probably from poor upbringing and lack of education. Her Mom was a lawyer and spoke with great punctuation and perfect grammar. (Funny most of the lawyers I've worked with suck at it, but I chose not to mention that. My god, most lawyers write run on sentences.)

My response?

1. I'm a lawyer. 2. My mother is educated and a speech therapist. Both have graduate degrees. My father has published six books. 3. I have a learning disability that causes me to flip things in my head.

Moral? Don't make assumptions and generalizations on social media, particularly about people you don't know.

Also, have I expressed how much the grammar police annoy me on social media? I think it's because they are such hypocrites about it. I read their posts - they don't use good grammar all of the time either. And make all sorts of mistakes. We all do. It's inevitable - unless you have a grammar and spellchecker that fixes all the mistakes.

Wednesday the Television Series

Saw the first episode - it's good. Some really good lines in it.

My favorite so far?

"I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation.”

Kinda of true. I'm also kind of rooting for Twitter to crash.

Comments

[conuly]

This isn't a learning disability thing or anything like that. This is her not understanding the existence and concept of different speech varieties, all of which are equally valid.

[shadowkat]

Thank you, that actually makes me feel a lot better. I kind of feel vindicated.

[conuly]

It's such a widespread element of English speech, too. Perhaps "register" was a better thing to note than "speech variety" but honestly, pretty much everybody does it at least some of the time and she darn well knows it.

[shadowkat]

Thanks. I think that's what pissed me off so much. And to throw her accomplished "lawyer" mother at, indicating that I wasn't as educated as she was or my parents weren't?

[mtbc]

Yeah, similarly my wife can write good English (it's not her first language) but in private casual conversation with me it's more error-prone and we're fine with that.

[mtbc]

I should add that my own English is better in my journal than it might be in conversation on Slack or whatever, a pass or two of proofreading typically catches at least a couple of issues. That's just how casual conversation is.

[conuly]

Barring momentary disfluencies, native speakers do not make mistakes in their own native speech. If you're a native speaker of English, your English is not "better in your journal" because that's a nonsensical statement. The English you use when speaking casually is not "worse".

[conuly]

Unless by "better" and "worse" you're speaking strictly of orthographical conventions, I guess - putting "your" for "you're", that sort of thing.

[gillo]

Nobody punctuates their speech. It's exceptionally rare for anyone to speak in complete sentences, let alone paragraphs.

Written English is not the same as spoken English. Both of them come in a huge variety of dialects and registers. The very concept of "correct English" is a dubious construct unknown before the late eighteenth century. And Jane Austen consistently wrote "freinds", yet was still one of the best writers of her century.

So they can just bugger off...

[shadowkat]

Thank you for all of that. Feel more and more vindicated. And agree. People don't speak in clear punctuated sentences. Heck, they don't even text in them or tweet in them most of the time. I've gotten very good at figuring it out by context. Also there's slang, variations in dialect, etc. And what works on the page doesn't always work spoken.

Love the Jane Austen bit.

I decided to delete my response to her - too personal for Twitter. And just not respond - I should have ignored her tweet. Twitter is weird - it's often better to just ignore what people tweet than to respond to it - in most cases they don't want a response at all.

[conuly]

it's often better to just ignore what people tweet than to respond to it - in most cases they don't want a response at all.

Language peevists definitely don't.

It's a general principle of linguistics that native speakers don't make mistakes in their own native speech. It's a general principle of sociolinguistics that prejudice towards a speech variety is a not-so-masked form of prejudice towards the people who speak that way.

People who randomly tell you that your speech is inferior aren't doing it because they care about the facts. They just get their rocks off at feeling superior to... well, in this case I'm going to guess "the poors", but any marginalized group counts.

Note: There are times when making corrections to somebody's speech is called for, of course. There are times when it's most appropriate to use the prestige dialect (in this case, Standard American English), just like there are times when it's most appropriate to wear a business suit rather than sweatpants. And if it'd be reasonable to remind somebody of the dress code then it's reasonable to remind them that it's time to use the office and classroom talk.

But randos on twitter? C'mon.

[shadowkat]

Agreed.

There's a saying, "be mindful of your audience". If in a business setting, where there is a specific language being spoke, it's important to be mindful of that speech and utilize it. Law has a specific language. Engineering does as well. And so do various businesses.

But the social media setting tends to be more casual. As do many social settings. Even the office, among my co-workers - when we are chatting about movies or other things, it's more casual.

[conuly]

And, you know, people don't tend to spell this out but it's almost as inappropriate to be too formal as it is to be not formal enough. That goes for speech as well as clothing.

[shadowkat]

Very true. If you get too formal or go full-on legalese or academic, it can come across as condescending or patronizing. I have a tendency to do that - when I get angry. It never ends well. Tone is important.

Same with clothing - there's an episode of the Crown S4 on Netflix, where Margaret Thatcher and her husband visit the Royal Family at their Scottish Castle. They assume the attire is formal, or formal business attire - because the Royal Family. But it's actually very casual, country, walk in the woods style attire. The misunderstanding causes all sorts of friction between them.

This past week, a new employee asked me if it was okay to wear jeans on Friday still. Apparently an email went out that said not to do it - but I never saw the email, nor did anyone else. Most of the floor was wearing jeans. And management certainly was.

It's always important to get a feel for what clothing is required at an event, or gathering or function. Some churches are very formal, while others aren't at all.

[shadowkat]

Very true. If you get too formal or go full-on legalese or academic, it can come across as condescending or patronizing. I have a tendency to do that - when I get angry. It never ends well. Tone is important.

Same with clothing - there's an episode of the Crown S4 on Netflix, where Margaret Thatcher and her husband visit the Royal Family at their Scottish Castle. They assume the attire is formal, or formal business attire - because the Royal Family. But it's actually very casual, country, walk in the woods style attire. The misunderstanding causes all sorts of friction between them.

This past week, a new employee asked me if it was okay to wear jeans on Friday still. Apparently an email went out that said not to do it - but I never saw the email, nor did anyone else. Most of the floor was wearing jeans. And management certainly was.

It's always important to get a feel for what clothing is required at an event, or gathering or function. Some churches are very formal, while others aren't at all.

[shadowkat]

Very true. If you get too formal or go full-on legalese or academic, it can come across as condescending or patronizing. I have a tendency to do that - when I get angry. It never ends well. Tone is important.

Same with clothing - there's an episode of the Crown S4 on Netflix, where Margaret Thatcher and her husband visit the Royal Family at their Scottish Castle. They assume the attire is formal, or formal business attire - because the Royal Family. But it's actually very casual, country, walk in the woods style attire. The misunderstanding causes all sorts of friction between them.

This past week, a new employee asked me if it was okay to wear jeans on Friday still. Apparently an email went out that said not to do it - but I never saw the email, nor did anyone else. Most of the floor was wearing jeans. And management certainly was.

It's always important to get a feel for what clothing is required at an event, or gathering or function. Some churches are very formal, while others aren't at all.

[gillo]

I'm as big an Austen fangirl as I am a Shakespeare groupie!

Agreed about Twitter. It's a bizarre set-up. I've had really enjoyable, friendly discussions, but also awful flaming. And you never know when one might turn into the other.

[mtbc]

People are just different in how their brain handles language and what's easy for some is very difficult for others. My father was articulate, smart, and knowledgeable, and his writing was unintentionally comically dreadful. Whereas, things like spelling came very easily to me, I didn't have to put the work in. But I'm preaching to the choir here, I know.

For the Jim and I vs me and Jim, I usually just imagine putting they or them in that place and see which sounds better.

Here's hoping that Wednesday continues as it started, that is definitely something I'd try once rejoining Netflix, I really appreciate that kind of writing. Thank you for the report.