When I was younger I remember being in elementary school and having to triple-check my assignments before giving them to the teacher because I knew that I was a horrible speller and I would get marked points off for it. Even though I use spell check now on everything I do, I still read over my work all the time just to make sure it has no spelling errors in it. I also remember having a big problem with run-on sentences. Like the idea would just go on for lines and lines and my teachers would always tell me to keep it short and sweet. Recently though in college, when I gave my professor my paper to get some extra pointers on, she noticed that I used a lot of filler words in my writing and called me out on it. When she said it to me, I noticed that I don’t just do it in my writing but also when I’m talking to people as well. The word like is a huge part of my vocabulary especially when it’s a more casual conversation because I don’t have to be so proper with my language.
Category: Blog Post 1
My Friend and I
When I was in elementary school I wrote on an essay or assignment that “Me and my friend went to the mall” and was told it is not the “proper” way to say that sentence. The correct way would be “My friend and I”. To this day that still doesn’t sound right to me. Upon it being pointed out I was told that the way I said it isn’t proper English and it would have to be written in the “proper way”. This impacted the way I would write for school, but not the way I would speak. I recently said to my friend that “me and my friends” did something and they responded with “it would be my friends and I”. I told them how I never understood how that is the proper way to say it and in speech as it doesn’t sound right to me, and as long as you understand what I’m saying, it doesn’t matter how I say it. So I will continue to put my words in whatever order I want, and use words that aren’t “real” like “wanna” and “gonna” when I text or speak, but on something for school or something of importance, I will do it the “proper” way simply to avoid being told it is not correct.
Prescriptivism
Urdu is my native language and I recall in middle school, I wrote an essay and I used the word “uninterested” and my teacher told me that this word is “wrong” and “did not exist”. I was quite confused and tried to research about words that “made sense” to me. I came across a forum which talked about how the words “uninterested” and “disinterested” are used interchangeably now. The word “disinterested” meant “unbiased” back in the days as saying “The author always takes a disinterested perspective when writing a book about political theory”. This was interesting to me because now, a lot of us do use the word “uninterested” and “disinterested” side by side. I think the reason that there was a change was because of evolution of language. I prefer not to add the word “disinterested” in my vocabulary. However, I do know one thing for sure, that my teacher was a prescriptivist as she enforced this word (and many others) on me, so I could have a “better vocabulary”.
Are these really words?
I remember while growing up in elementary school I had this one teacher that wouldn’t allow the class to say words like gonna, wanna, and needa. So, if you said “ I needa use the bathroom, can I please go”, she would say “needa is not a word you need to ask again the correct way” in front of the whole class so everyone would look at you and know not to say that unless you want to be corrected ( embarrassing). She would then write it down every time you said it and if you said it more than 5 times you weren’t allowed to use the bathroom anymore while she was there, you had to either wait for lunch or for the next period with a different teacher. Oh, and god forbid you wrote in down in your notebook or on a piece of paper that was being handed in it was circled in a bright red marker and written on top in bold: THAT IS NOT A WORD FIX IT!!!!! She never really gave us a real explanation as to why we weren’t allowed to use those words, she would always just say “it’s not a word” and no one ever questioned it because she was the teacher, and she was really mean. After that teacher I was sacred to say or use those words in my writing. Till this day I still don’t know if they are really words that can be used, but I will not use them in my writing or talking to a teacher. I will however use them if I am talking to a friend.
