Don't you wish you were in Utah?

We miss Lindsey!

See more about our holiday here

I Have Been Vilified

After being away from my computer for one day I was astonished to see that Tom and Brittany’s “Right and Wrong Pronunciation Debate” has caused so many postings. First, if I knew my comments would be attacked in such a vicious manner, I would not have posted them. I also did not know the debate would transform into expressions beyond opinion of the subject matter and delve into personal injury.

I think maybe my comment was misunderstood by everyone. Let me try to make it clearer here:

I did some research on phonics relating to the continuing debate.

There are standard/nonstandard, formal/informal, and proper/improper ways to pronounce words in the English language. The standard, formal, or proper way to say a word depends on the dominant culture of where it is being said. If you pronounce a word while speaking, you may not be pronouncing it the nonstandard, informal, or improper way. For example, if you are talking to the Queen and pronounce something that goes against received pronunciation, and then you are pronouncing that word in the nonstandard, informal, or improper way.

For the right and wrong aspect of it I feel that many are misunderstanding the definitions of certain words.

Wrong: 1. not proper or usual; not in accordance with requirements or recommended practice: the wrong way to hold a golf club.

2. Unacceptable or undesirable according to social convention.

3. Not in accord with established usage, method, or procedure.

Right: 1. in conformity with fact, reason, truth, or some standard or principle

2. socially approved, desirable, or influential

3. properly or fittingly

Now that these definitions are understood, let me make my case even more clear, yet again. First, if you can say a word wrong then you must be able to say a word right. 1. So, if I was to pronounce a word in the English language that was not pronounced that way in any dialect, accent, or by any other human, then I would be pronouncing that word “wrong” because it was against and unacceptable with all social conventions. (Many ESL people and people with speech disorders struggle with this, which is why they have speech therapists) 2. There are four ways to say almond in America that are socially and culturally accepted, so if I pronounced almond another way then it would not be right, it would be improper or unusual and would not fit the recommended practice. 3. My last point is that if you follow the International Phonetic Alphabet the world uses and is socially accepted worldwide, you are speaking “right,” and if you do not, you are speaking “wrong.” If you take this point a step further and are talking about other languages, such as French or Spanish, there are absolute right and wrong ways to say words; so if you are using examples of some ethnic words being arbitrary in their pronunciation, you are sorely mistaken.

Penultimate Conclusion: Since we have normative ways to pronounce words in the English language in social and cultural aspects, there are “right” and “wrong” ways to say words. Since, I am now a master teacher, it has been my pleasure to educate all of you.
Conclusion: Often a teacher's job is not to tell students what to think but how to think by questioning opinions posed and to consider different perspectives on an issue by using various sources, not only one. This type of synthesis and evaluation influences children to develop higher order thinking and the ability to navigate a variety of texts in more than one way.

How to identify a creep

On the donkey's blog there is a poll to designate the official creep. There are a couple of problems with the poll, the biggest is that the donkey himself is not included. The second problem is that some people may not understand how to properly identify a creep. If saying outrageously inappropriate things was the only consideration then I think we all know who would win. But when considering the word creep an image comes to mind, scraggly, shady, unkempt, and as weird al once said an eddie veder like wild eyed stare. I like to think of it this way, if you put all the candidates in a line-up and brought in a random person that doesn't know any of them and said, one of these people was apprehended skulking around the alley who do you think it was. That is how to identify a creep. Given this description there is really only one choice. You've played where's waldo, here's a game called where's the creep?

Comment-Checking Got Ya Down?

I just added a new feature to the sidebar that will list the last 5 comments people wrote on this blog, so you can easily see what's new.

For those of you who really want to stay on top of things, I can add you to a distribution list that will send you all posts and comments via email. Let me know if you are interested.

Any other comments or suggestions about the blog?

STOP! This is a Rebuttal. Read Tom's Argument First.

Firstly, kudos to Tom for reproducing my argument rather accurately. Secondly, I would like to clear up that I was joking when I “corrected” Ryan’s pronunciation of ridiculous because we were both saying it the same way. It seems now that there is only one point of disagreement on this issue: Tom believes in “right’s” and “wrong’s” and I do not. It is his choice and opinion to feel there are “right” and “wrong” ways to say things, while mine is that there is standard (formal, informal, general) English, and nonstandard English. At one point Tom felt I was getting too into semantics, and then I reminded him that’s what the issue has been about all along. As I understand the argument, Tom feels that people can pronounce words in several ways, but not names. There is a flaw in his argument because Americans commonly have several pronunciation for names, regardless of how it is typically pronounced. For example, the name Michelangelo is pronounced two different ways (the American way is to add an a to make it sounds like Michael). Neither pronunciation is “right” or “wrong,” but rather one is more correct or standard if you are in Europe and the other more correct or standard in America. Now, Tom might say, well that’s different because you are talking about another country, but it is the same. The names we have in America come from all around the world, so there are no strictly “American” names. When a group of people decide to say a word or name a particular way it becomes the most “correct” or standard pronunciation for their in-group. Yes there are national standards or more acceptable or recognized pronunciations, but that doesn’t mean there are no alternative pronunciations. As for Tom’s examples, his points might be more valid if he used more applicable examples. Larissa’s hometown affected a close pronunciation to Reese’s by saying Reesie’s. To make his point, Tom continually uses example that are too absurd because they don’t follow the rules of the English language. It is absurd that he would pronounce ridiculous as recockulous because the di sound is never replaced with the co sound. Whereas Larissa’s neighborhood substituted the short e sound at the end of Resse for the long e sound. This has and does happen. Tom needs to clean up his examples and make them more applicable for me to consider them part of his argument. Yes we follow rules; the English language is structured and this is what keeps our language intelligible. Yet, to try and stop relatively logical changes from occurring, like the alternate pronunciation of Reese’s, is preposterous. Changes will happen and they aren’t right or wrong, they just are.

There's no wrong way to say a Reese's?

So many of you have heard about this debate already. Let me catch the others up to speed. People in Larissa's home town pronounce Reese's, Reesie's. It's something I used to tease her about and she mentioned it to Brittany and Ryan. Brittany said, "So what." I said "Larissa is saying it wrong, it should be said Reese's." This started a long and heated debate. Brittany said you can't say wrong or right, only standard or not standard-common or uncommon. Let me back up, to
The ironic begining: The Reese's debate began because Brittany and Ryan had been discussing the proper (more common) way to say tyrannical and asked our oppinion.
I agree that some words have more than one way for pronunciation. And sometimes there is a more common way to say a word but both ways are correct. Brittany said because this town in Ohio all say Reesie's that is right for them (colloqualism) and therefore I cannot say they are saying it wrong. In that area that's how it is said and it doesn't change the meaning. Good point but I must disagree. First let me say I understand Brittany's studies are in this area and she is more knowledgeable about some grammatical topics than myself and others. Let's put that aside considering this topic isn't of such great depth that others can't have an opinion or say on the subject. Please in your comments make a more valid point other than saying Tom is stupid and Brittany is the expert in this area, I know this may be a tempting argument for say Chris or Phil. Ok, as stated before I agree that langauge changes over time and we have to be sensitive to the different accents and or dialects of our fellow countrymen. We are not discussing other langauges or the english language in 50 years. The debate is, can you say someone is pronouncing a word wrong or right. On a philisophical level it is probably true that nothing is definite or wrong or right. But such arguments are seriously missing the mark. During this debate much has been argued and talked about, I will try to present my argument with two main points.
1) The candy is named after the man called Reese:
Do we have the liberty to change this man's last name because it's applied to a candy? Or does the pronunciation of his name stay in tact because the candy is named after him? I submitt that we cannot decide to say his name however we choose (well I guess we can do what ever we want) it is his name and we don't tell him how to say it. Are we to believe our simple brothers and sisters from Ohio will call this man H. Reesie? Of course not. Why does his name change because we add 'S to Reese. If our name was spelled with an "E" and we made a Clarke bar (I know Clark bar already exist) called Clarke's bar would anyone say Clarkie's bar? Some people probably, but would it not be incorrect if our name is not pronounced Clarkie?
2) The 'S show a possessive quality. IE, if you were to say "Look, there is Mr. Reese's car." Almost nobody would say Reesie's car. Larissa readily admitts she would say Reese's not Reesie's car. What's the difference between his car and his, shall we say buttrecups or pieces?
There are other points to debate and argue but this entry is already long. I know we've hardly scratched the surface, but tell me what you think. Is there no wrong or right way to say any word? Can we say words however we want but not last names? Do we not follow rules when speaking and writing (I know I don't when typing, please no comments)? What would things truly be like if everyone pronounced words however they felt like and we accepted that as correct english rather than accepting these words or phrases as colloqualisms?
An ironic end: Brittany said Ryan spelled ridiculous incorrectly (rediculous). Ryan a usually good speller said "No way you say it rediculous." Brittany chided him with a correction, "Ryan it's pronounced, ridiculous." But to me this whole debate his recockulous because that's just how decide I say it.

Wounded in battle by Portegeuse man-of-war!

It was a beautiful sunny day. I didn't have much of an agenda, the world was mine for the taking. "What should we do today?" stupid Janie asked. I gave it some deep thought before I responded, "Lets boogey board out to goat island." Goat island is a large mass out in the pacific sea where surfers and kite boarders trek to, to catch "the ultimate wave." It takes about an hour to swim thru choppy waters to this deserted island, there are also said to be reef sharks near the island...did this stop me? NEVER. I arrived at the beach and dove right into the water anxious for my quest. Swimming thru the rough waters would be hard for most chumps but not for lindsey freaking clark, I sliced thru those waves like butter. Than Janie opened her stupid foreshadowing mouth and said, "oh man I hope we dont get like bit or anything." No sooner had she closed her mouth, when I opened mine to yell out in pain. I had been hit!! The man-of-war jellyfish wrapped it's filthy tentical from my left arm, around my neck and down to my right arm. I had to rip it off of me while severing my flesh in the process. I couldn't go on anymore, it was the most excrustiating pain Ive ever experience! My arm started to swell disabling me from paddling, but I pushed forward. Once out of the water the wind was whipping about all over my swollen arm. My arm was bright red and about twice the size it should be. I screamed out and kicked stuff. There were no medics in sight, I had no one full of pee to ask to relieve themselves on my arm, and trust me I wouldn't have cared it hurt that bad. Finally I just ran to the bus stop, went home and dumped baking soda all over my body. I was almost neutralized by the enemy but I fought on. I am asking the clark army come out here and cook the filthy swine that attacked me. I have a feeling he was sent out by the dreaded Applebees, this battle is now a war.