I was never reprimanded for any official grammar mistakes or errors, not that I can remember. However, there was this problem my fifth grade teacher had a problem with a misunderstanding that had to do with the diction of a specific word. She had announced to the class that she was Italian. I have no problem with Italians, I love Italians. But there was this classmate of mine that had pronounced it in a way I’ve never heard before, he pronounced the word “Italian” with emphasis on the letters “tal” but instead of saying it the regular more used way, he pronounced it as “tall” so he was basically saying “Itallian” (ituhlian). So me as a child was very amused by this accent he seemed to have had, and I mimicked him, I said to him, “Did you say ituhlian?” And he laughed, he had no problem with it. But for some reason my teacher was upset, perhaps she thought I was mimicking her instead of him, she did have a tiny bit of a deep voice but it was not my intention to make fun of her ethnicity or culture. I was 9. She had gotten upset and took ten points off of my good behavior. But she later proved how point happy she was at the end of the year when I had received a -160 points for good behavior. I was never introduced to slang or the shortening of words as my mom had discovered I had a Brooklyn accent at the age of 7 and then limited what I can watch on television. Truly it was my mom who had put the effort in making me sound educated. In my fifth grade class I had just mentioned, the teacher herself used these shortened words and had a Brooklyn accent. But it was my mom who had corrected me. I never asked my mom about “aint” and “arent” but I was taught to use proper grammar and excelled in essay writing all through middle school, high school, until this day. I picked up the double negative language in late high school, as I was surrounded by it but I know it is not grammatically appropriate to use in a professional setting. I think using the shortened versions of any words may come off as lazy to use, I feel like if I’m talking fast I’ll definitely use the shortened versions but if I’m trying to keep my composure and take my time with my speaking, I’ll use longer, bigger, more advanced vocabulary.