Eengwish
- 2007-05-18
Dear John,
While I agree with your statements in regards to Black Serpents' poor English, you yourself are beginning to border on racism with your claims that only British people can speak Engliah well and that other cultures that have adopted English as their native tongue have twisted and tainted the Language because they couldn't speak it properly.
Is it not true that only 2% of British people actually speak the "Queens English"? So you must accept that British people themselves have changed English in order to suit themselves? So, how do you qualify to teach English? If you go far enough back to when we all spoke old English it would lead to the assumption(by your criteria) that none of us are actually qualified to teach English.
What about Irish people? You certainly aren't going to tell me that the people from a country that produced Yeats, Joyce, wilde et all are not qualified to teach English? Or that they should "have the courtesy" to learn the language properly before they have the gall to use it.
While Black Serpents obvious biases and prejudices are more coarse and obvious to the eye, yours are of the more dangerous kind. To believe you have the divine right and abilty to do something simply because you were born in a certain place is something that Hitler, mayhap, would have been proud of.
John
- 2007-05-14
Black Serpent claims to be a teacher. That being the case, then his English is not good enough to qualify him to be a teacher of it and it is that simple. My criticism of his English was not a racial slur and people like him and you who take it to be so should go and find out what a racial slur really is.
The reason that there are - as you say - so many 'Englishes' around is because so many people in the past who couldn't speak it properly had the temerity to pretend they were experts and proceeded to teach it badly. (like Black Serpent does today) I include many of the so-called 'native English speakers' in that.
I am not 'lecturing' Black Serpent or anyone else but I am claiming my right as a teacher who knows the English language AND the culture which suffuses it so thoroughly, to criticise those who speak it badly.
Black Serpent claims to correct me and others in this forum when we are in fact using very correct English. It is we who should correct him and he would do well to listen and learn instead of spouting off yet again. His English is crap and that is a fact. Read it for yourself and ask if you would want to spend money paying that man to teach your children English that would not pass muster in a British Junior school let alone in British society. I mention the word "British" for it was the British and their forebears who developed the language. It is the British 'Oxford' Dictionary that is still the authoritative guardian of the language. Those who are not British should have the courtesy and competence to learn to speak English properly before claiming that they are good enough to teach it. Having said all that - Black Serpent's English wouldn't pass muster in junior schools of most western English speaking countries either
Black Serpent's English is bad and that makes his English teaching sub-standard because he is misleading his students.
John