Rutgers Declares Grammar Racist

[Christianbookworm]

Isn't Hypatia European? So, she'd know the formal English taught in schools?

[Cow Poke]

**cough**Hypatia**cough**

Yeah, I suspect she's German and learned "royal English".

We always laugh when somebody learns Spanish so they can work with our Mexican friends, but it's SPAIN's Spanish, not Mexican Spanish, and it sounds funny.

[mossrose]

Yeah, I suspect she's German and learned "royal English".

We always laugh when somebody learns Spanish so they can work with our Mexican friends, but it's SPAIN's Spanish, not Mexican Spanish, and it sounds funny.

Québécois is the same, to a French person.

[Cow Poke]

Québécois is the same, to a French person.

I guess it even goes back to "classic Greek" vs common Greek.

Eh?

[Christianbookworm]

I wonder if any translator ever accidentally translated the New Testament as if it were classical Greek instead of Koine Greek?

[Sparko]

Yeah, I suspect she's German and learned "royal English".

We always laugh when somebody learns Spanish so they can work with our Mexican friends, but it's SPAIN's Spanish, not Mexican Spanish, and it sounds funny.

My family in Germany learned English in school and don't talk anything like Hypatia. She just wants to sound high falutin' as an attempt to sound smarterer than she really is.

[Christianbookworm]

So it's not an ESL thing?

[Mountain Man]

Isn't spoken and written English different? Like you would not talk like you were writing a professional level paper!

I think it depends on your level of education. Those with more education tend to speak how they are taught to write, and those with less education tend to write like they speak.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Rutgers Declares Grammar Racist

English Department pledges to incorporate 'critical grammar' into program

Chrissy Clark - July 24, 2020 4:00 PM

The English department at a public university declared that proper English grammar is racist.

Rutgers University's English department will change its standards of English instruction in an effort to "stand with and respond" to the Black Lives Matter movement. In an email written by department chairwoman Rebecca Walkowitz, the Graduate Writing Program will emphasize "social justice" and "critical grammar."

Walkowitz said the department would respond to recent events with "workshops on social justice and writing," "increasing focus on graduate student life," and "incorporating ‘critical grammar' into our pedagogy." The "critical grammar" approach challenges the standard academic form of the English language in favor of a more inclusive writing experience. The curriculum puts an emphasis on the variability of the English language instead of accuracy.

"This approach challenges the familiar dogma that writing instruction should limit emphasis on grammar/sentence-level issues so as to not put students from multilingual, non-standard ‘academic' English backgrounds at a disadvantage," Walkowitz said. "Instead, it encourages students to develop a critical awareness of the variety of choices available to them [with] regard to micro-level issues in order to empower them and equip them to push against biases based on ‘written' accents."

Additionally, the department said it will provide more reading to upper-level writing classes on the subjects of racism, sexism, homophobia, and related forms of "systemic discrimination."

Leonydus Johnson, a speech pathologist and libertarian activist, said the school's change makes the racist assumption that minorities cannot comprehend traditional English. Johnson called the change "insulting, patronizing, and in itself, extremely racist."

"The idea that expecting a student to write in grammatically correct sentences is indicative of racial bias is asinine," Johnson told the Washington Free Beacon. "It's like these people believe that being non-white is an inherent handicap or learning disability…. That's racism. It has become very clear to me that those who claim to be ‘anti-racist' are often the most racist people in this country."

Rutgers's new anti-racist language standard comes alongside a litany of changes at other universities. Princeton University's board of trustees voted to remove Woodrow Wilson's name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges to denounce the former president's "racist thinking and policies." The James Madison residential college at Michigan State University is considering making a similar change. Activists at the University of Pittsburgh have called for the firing of any employee deemed racist or discriminatory by students, and the school said it will give the demands "serious consideration."

The Rutgers English department created a Committee on Bias Awareness and Prevention in 2012. In light of Black Lives Matter protests, the school has moved past bias awareness and prevention and into a focus on "decolonization." Walkowitz's email talks of "decolonizing the writing center." The department offers a specific internship titled "Decolonizing the Writing Center" to "make the writing centers more linguistically diverse."

The university and Walkowitz did not respond to requests for comment.

Us Grammar Nazis is in lots of troubles!

It is a rather asinine idea. It reminds me of the Afro-centrism that was all the rage years ago in the US. Everybody in history was black according to that "theory" [I use the word advisedly] and African civilisations led the way. Off the top of my head I cannot think of any really ancient African civilisations apart from Egypt.

Such theories are similar to what is known as soft primitivism. Examples of which include the idea that before the white man arrived all the Native American nations were tree-hugging proto-hippies, and prior to the wicked Romans and Julius Caesar all the Celtic Gauls were living in contended harmony.

[Cow Poke]

My family in Germany learned English in school and don't talk anything like Hypatia. She just wants to sound high falutin' as an attempt to sound smarterer than she really is.

Oh.

[Cow Poke]

It is a rather asinine idea. It reminds me of the Afro-centrism that was all the rage years ago in the US. Everybody in history was black according to that "theory" [I use the word advisedly] and African civilisations led the way. Off the top of my head I cannot think of any really ancient African civilisations apart from Egypt.

Such theories are similar to what is known as soft primitivism. Examples of which include the idea that before the white man arrived all the Native American nations were tree-hugging proto-hippies, and prior to the wicked Romans and Julius Caesar all the Celtic Gauls were living in contended harmony.

Here, it's called "the dumbing down of society". An uneducated populace is much easier to control than an educated one.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

My family in Germany learned English in school and don't talk anything like Hypatia.

How do you know how I "talk"?

She just wants to sound high falutin' as an attempt to sound smarterer than she really is.

Lol! Why such surprise that people can write in a language? Leonhard and Chrawnus both write in perfectly good English. Do you make the same jibes about them?

I assume both those contributors are natives of their respective countries [Denmark and Finland] and not simply English speakers resident in those countries. I'd also suggest you try reading or watching a foreign correspondent journalist that is based in a foreign country.

Furthermore anyone who has studied language to a higher level will know that writing is different from speaking.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Here, it's called "the dumbing down of society". An uneducated populace is much easier to control than an educated one.

I fear that dumbing down society is not unique to the USA.

[Cow Poke]

I fear that dumbing down society is not unique to the USA.

It's sad, truly.

Quick side story. When I was in High School, there was a renewed focus on English as a language. We had a round of tests to determine a student's proficiency in English*, and those who failed or performed poorly were required to take a class in remedial English. As one my suspect, I excelled, so I had to take "some other class" while many students took remedial English. For reasons I could not, at the time, understand, I was directed to take Typing 1.

Mind you, at that time, "typing" was for girls. (Sexist, yes, but true) On my first day of class, I looked around and perceived that I was the ONLY male in a class full of females, several of whom were quite attractive.

Our teacher was "old school" meanie, actually intending for us all to learn "touch typing", and love it.

A) I got to experience the wonderful sense of being the only guy in a room full of girls
2) I was forced to learn "typing", which I thought was an absolute total waste of time, but as the "computer age" hit, I discovered that I was QUITE proficient in a field where most of my colleagues employed the "barnyard method" of typing. (hunt and peck)

Being forced into typing was one of the best things that ever happened to me!


*IMOHBAO, the reason we were doing so badly in English is that we had abandoned phonics.

[Mountain Man]

When I was in High School, there was a renewed focus on English as a language.

I had an English teacher in high school who taught with an almost militant fervor. She used curriculum that we called "Programmed Grammar" (I forget the longer title) that was literally page after page after page of grammar drills, and then at the end of every chapter, you had to take a test and pass with at least an 80% or you had to do the entire chapter over again. Naturally, we students hated "PG" with a passion, but I suppose I can't complain because it did teach me to right gud.