The History Man":1x7sv82l said:
Thanks for such an eloquent if sadly oppressed reply. It's a shame that you're colloquialisms weren't embraced. I myself am an 'English' teacher but concentrate on the creative and engaging rather than 'proper' English. If there is such a thing these days.
Hope nobody gets the mardis!
I wouldn't say I felt oppressed as such but more resentful that the words we used were deemed to be of lesser value than the proper English spoken by most of the teachers. My 2 daughters are now living in a country where the richer, older language is all but gone due to lots of people now using an Amercanised/homogenised language. For instance, just one word, in the part of Scotland I come from the word for slippers is baffies, to my mind a brilliant sounding word, it even feels comfy. It's all but gone, only auld, crabbit people like me still use it. All over the UK it is the same, so many good, local words for things are just being lost, our language is all the poorer for losing these words.
On the other hand my working-class Scot's accent hasn't always been a disadvantage. I've been to North Wales a few times to rock-climb, once with my climbing mate and also with the Jacobite climbing club from Edinburgh. With my mate we went into pubs for a pint after climbing and the locals would start to speak in Welsh till they realised we were Scottish not English then they'd revert back to English. The trip down there to Llanberis with the Jacobites made me realise how much some of the Welsh dislike the English. We were in the pub one night and amongst the Jacobites there were a few English members and also some Scots with the posh Edinburgh accent that sounds so very English. Whenever the English guys or Edinburgh Scots with the affected posh accent went to the bar, they were ignored as soon as they spoke and the bar staff would serve someone else. It eventually twigged with them and it was us guys with the recognisable Scottish accents that got served no bother even though the bar staff knew we were with the "English" guys. :shock:
People may accuse us Scots of not liking the English, it's not really true, but funny as it was at the time what happened on the trip to Wales went too far. Been to Llanelli and Cardiff to play rugby and go to the Wales v Scotland games and never had any problem with the English guys in our rugby club so maybe it's just North Wales. :roll:
What are my marks out of ten for my grammar and spelling? :mrgreen: