WASPS and Rednecks...the next victims of mass Genocide?

Originally posted by Frogs
reply to post by Terrorist

 

Hmmmm.. I'd be interesting in hearing your thoughts on if a redneck or southern accent / dialect is any more (or less) degenerate than say a New York, or Mid-west, or Yankee, or Spanish, or English, or Scottish, or Irish, or any other accent / dialect??

..and if so - why?

I definitely came off more offensive than I meant to be. When I say "degenerate" I don't mean rednecks are inferior, but that the dialect is a degeneration of the language. And it's the same for any accent that has you wound up pronouncing words incorrectly.
(When I survey my views on the following accents and dialects, note that it's only the ones you've selected) So the New York and Yankee accent & dialects are somewhat degenerated, but far less than that of the redneck and English ones. There's a big difference with those of Spanish, Scottish, and Irish accents and dialects because those have been influenced by other languages - Spanish, Scots, and Irish Gaelic, respectively, rather than those of the English, New York, mid-west, redneck, and "Yankee" dialects, which have degenerated (to dramatically different extents) independently of extralinguistic influence. Also, I want to say that the mid-west dialect is the least degenerated of those you had listed, as it's the closest to broadcast English (the form of English most widely considered to be "correct").
Finally, you may wonder what I am suggesting as far as remedying the degeneration. That would be speech therapy. But the thing is, when it's a second language to you, I don't think it's really necessary. But there's a stigma to people whose accent is degenerated independently of extralinguistic influence, so in that case it would definitely be advisable to get speech therapy. Which is sad, people shouldn't be prejudice like that.

Originally posted by Lemon.Fresh
Reply to post by Terrorist

 

If I felt like getting banned, I would show you how you list of meanings for redneck could be used as blanket statements for others that are different than you.

 

Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

 

Anyone can share their vernacular definition for a word, but that doesn't mean it will be applicable to its most common societal implications.

Use your imagination with your second list of "oppressed" people.

 

Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

 

Are you suggesting that blacks, hispanics, women, gays, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and Mormons aren't among the most suppressed people in contemporary society? It would be ludicrous and painfully unrealistic to suggest otherwise.

I'm with ya on the jew agenda to make whites look stupid. but the redneck thing isn't anything to worry about. infact depending on your views of government and corporations, redneck could very well be a compliment.

back in the days when unions were actually a good thing, the "rednecks" put the blueprints down for american working man. they spread out across the country and got american laborers better pay, more rights, and a multitude of regulations for various industries passed. those unions went on to bring us public education on mass scale, 40 hour work weeks, and overtime pay. and the rednecks risked thier lives to accomplish this.

reply to post by wingsfan


How is it a jew agenda? Care to clarify?

Those rednecks you speak of didn't do anything for the labor movement. You're thinking of blue-collar folks. Isn't the South currently full of states with "right-to-work" (sic) clauses? That would make them anti-union.

Originally posted by The Sword
reply to post by wingsfan

 

How is it a jew agenda? Care to clarify?

Those rednecks you speak of didn't do anything for the labor movement. You're thinking of blue-collar folks. Isn't the South currently full of states with "right-to-work" (sic) clauses? That would make them anti-union.

the term redneck refers to a union mine worker and or striker. many of whom left the south after what many considered a literal war against the corporate thugs.

Anyway, how silly to be 'offended' by a word, no matter in what manner it is meant. When I meet a racist, I don't get offended, I just realise how uneducated they are. Nationality is an illusion, countries don't actually exist independently (as in, the only dividing lines are those that have been drawn on maps throughout history). How can you be annoyed by someone insulting your nationality? I'm offended by those I care about if they say something hurtful towards me, I'm not offended by people I don't know - especially when they put their ignorance out on display like that. Why's everyone so uptight these days? Why so serious?

Besides, they're just words. Like swear words, we empower them to provoke a certain reaction. If a white guy says the n word but doesn't mean it in a malicious manner, then whats the big deal? He wasn't around in the 40's. The only reason people would get upset at him is because of their own expectations and attitudes towards the word. I mean plenty of black people say it all the time. It seems they originally did this to take the power away from it, but now hardly any white people use the word and they still throw it around. Plus, they're allowed to call whites 'cracker' and 'honky' on family sitcoms, American's can call Brits 'tea drinkers with bad teeth' etc. Granted, one must take history into account - but to a certain extent. I never committed any hate crimes and have always respected all people equally. It isn't right for China to keep asking Japan for WW II apologies today and it isn't cool to allow Israel so much leverage because of something that happened over 60 years ago - how about Rwanda, Armenia, etc? Leaning on the suffering of one's predecessors within the collective race seems bizarre to me. Move forwards, live now.

Besides, now suddenly it's more socially acceptable to be racist against those with Arab names, regardless of their spiritual beliefs. This is a tangible form a racism, as it makes it harder to find employment, increases the amount of hassle that one receives (especially when travelling), puts individuals at risk of bodily harm and overall is a headache.

Understand, I'm not prejudice or racist, I'm just saying everyone really needs to pull the forks out their behinds about certain issues. It's only offensive if you allow it to be. It's different when you legally and socially have different rights from one another, but apart from that context there's no need to be proud or ashamed of your ethnic background, it's irrelevant.

reply to post by Dr Expired


First of all no offense intended to anyone(disclaimer)
Second-I hear this all of the time, we shouldnt call people names etc. etc. etc. I have to be honest Im so tired of this namby pamby whining that its becoming infuriating.

People are given monikers all the time, by skin color, age race, religious affiliation, I could go on and on and on.
If you dont like the name you are given-fight back, dont stand there and take it and then whine about it. No one will call me a name I find derogative, I dont stand there and take it, I find an adequate rebuttal.

Its high time people got over themselves and began to live again. Worrying about what is politically correct has become the all consuming point of our lives.

To be totally truthful, I doubt most real (in the original sense of the word) Rednecks would care if someone called them a Redneck, they are well aware of the REAL meaning of the word, and all of its conotations. It denotes a hard working, American grown person, who stands up for what is right, and beleives in freedom for every human.
So call me a Redneck if you want. I would gladly accept the moniker, as would have most of my forebearers. But remember this, when SHTF, Ill be the college educated, intelligent REDNECK standing between you and the bad guns with a gun, making sure you remain the free American you think you should be.

reply to post by Terrorist


Thanks for clearing it up.

A possible point of interest - when you get down to some of the "slang" or "regional words" used in many locations of the south or Appalachia you'll run into words that are also common to those with an Irish, Scottish, or Gaelic accent / dialect. Its not too surprising as many of the communities have remained isolated and were founded by people of Scottish or Irish descent years ago. I

I've not seen any research on it - but I suspect that is where the "twang" or "drawl" comes from as well.

Originally posted by grizzle2
So the Domestic Extremist Lexicon (mentioned Whites around 20 times)...

Did you read the document with a critical eye? Or did you just get skeered and look for instances of the word "white"? There are 11 entries in the lexicon relating to whites. There are 7 entries regarding other identified ethnicities, with about a 50/50 split between black and various hispanic groups cited. Seems to mirror the demographics of the United States pretty accurately.

reply to post by wingsfan


i take redneck as a compliment....


HERE IS ANOTHER PART OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM---

those "red" people [native americans]...which intermingled with the whites in the south. many southerners have "indian" in our bloodline, which caused them to be maligned by the elites.

what type of people were working those fields and gettings the red necks? those deemed lesser humans or unpure, part savage.

also, we rednecks are the predominant group who has through american history shown the courage to "punch you in the mouth" in regards to not being pushed around.

reply to post by Terrorist

To be fair, the stereotypically black dialect is a degeneration of the language as well, but that would be the same as the redneck accent, and the cockney accent, any other degeneration etc.

No dialect or accent is a degeneration of anything. There is no perfect, incorrupt linguistic standard for English or any other language to degenerate from. Even dictionary writers acknowledge this. For more information on the subject of how language differences evolve, see this ATS post.

African-American English has its own special vocabulary and grammar, but these are as consistent in rules and usage as their counterparts in any other variety of English. African-American English is a strong, vibrant, living human tongue; it follows slightly different rules from the ones you learnt in school, but it follows them obediently. It is very far from degenerate.

*

reply to post by space cadet

You’re not a WASP unless you had English ancestors (not Scottish, Irish or even Welsh ones, far less German or Italian) and they (the ones who came to America, at least) were Protestant Christians. All white Americans are not WASPs by any means; the term refers mainly to Boston Brahmin types, and although it is slightly disparaging, it is not – unlike redneck – an outright insult by any means to call someone a WASP.

reply to post by Astyanax


If African Americans have their own vocabulary and grammar isn't that degenerate in a way because That way of speaking isn't taught in the majority of US schools, to my knowledge. In my area and we have schools that are majority black and Ebonics isn't taught, just standard American English is taught.
I'm not trying to be an ass with this post btw. My reasoning is that in school we are taught that in math 1+1=2 ( representing standard American English) if I were than to start or invent my own math ( representing African American grammar and vocabulary because that isn't what's being taught) , wouldn't that be along the same lines as being degenerate?

Btw, I don't always agree with what you say but I sure do enjoy reading your posts.

reply to post by kimish

If African Americans have their own vocabulary and grammar isn't that degenerate in a way because that way of speaking isn't taught in the majority of US schools, to my knowledge?

Is the version of English taught in American schools the standard by which everyone’s speech and writing should be judged? The English language originated in England, and it was the British Empire, not Hollywood, that carried it round the world. The country with the largest number of English speakers on Earth is India. I am South Asian, though not Indian, yet my mother tongue, too, is English. I don’t understand why the dialect of English taught in one former colony of the British Empire should be considered the universal standard of the language.

And of course, it isn’t. In truth, there is no such standard. There is a dialect known to linguists as Standard English, but it isn't American; it is based on the English spoken by educated natives in the southeast and East Midlands areas of England. And not even this is considered to be an absolute standard nowadays. Watch the news on the BBC and you'll hear presenters speaking in all kinds of accents, from Lancashire to Lucknow, Lusaka to Linlithgow. The era is past when anyone could point to a single, absolute standard of English.

It was short-lived anyway. The story of English goes back to Anglo-Saxon, the language that came to be spoken by Englishmen and Englishwomen in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from the island. That language was already a hybrid, a mongrel, a bastard – an amalgam of the old Celtic tongue with Latin and no less than three Germanic dialects. To this mishmash the ‘Danish’ invasions of eastern England added a powerful Scandinavian influence on vocabulary and grammar in the century or so before the Norman conquest. When the Normans arrived in 1066, they added to the language a cargo of French loan-words, as well as a heap of Latin borrowings into French. The unholy mess which resulted, with its multitude of synonyms and multiplicity of grammatical constructions existing side by side and sometimes in contradiction to one another, was the English tongue as it was known to Chaucer and his contemporaries.

Two hundred years later, in the era of Shakespeare, the King James Bible and Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, things had begun to settle down a bit. Yet neither vocabulary nor spelling nor pronunciation nor even grammar were fixed; there was no absolute standard. And people in different parts of England still spoke in different dialects and regional accents, as indeed they do to this day.

The idea that there is a 'proper' way to spell a word is a child of the printing industry – obvious when you think about it, no? – and didn't exist much before the early seventeenth century even though Caxton opened his first press in London in 1476 or thereabouts. Standardized spelling was a big deal in the eighteenth century, but even then no universal standard was agreed; America, thanks to Thomas Jefferson and Noah Webster, came to fix on one orthographical standard fairly quickly, while in Britain it took a great deal longer and the process was never really completed. In fact, it never is; a living language is continually growing and changing.

So much for spelling. Grammar Nazism is yet more recent, dating back to the nineteenth century, when people in Britain and America were becoming seriously socially mobile for the first time in history. Formerly poor people from rural areas who had migrated to the city and made it big wanted to be able to ‘talk posh’ like their social betters so as to disguise their humble beginnings and gain acceptance among the elite. Their bourgeois aspirations were catered to by elocution tutors eager to help them ‘normalize’ their accents and dozens of books on ‘proper’ spelling, grammar and style whose authors told us it was wrong to end a sentence with a preposition, split infinitives, use ‘which’ instead of ‘that’, and so on.

All such rules are rubbish. Where did they come from? Many are borrowed from Latin, a language that has nothing in common with English, structurally speaking, and are not suited to it. Certainly, masters of the language have never obeyed them. Examine the corpus of English literature from Chaucer to, say, Charles Dickens; you'll find that great writers and poets all cheerfully split infinitives, ended sentences with prepositions, started them with conjunctions and perpetrated every other one of the grammatical and stylistic so-called errors of the lingo pundits, and their works were all the better – and all the more English – for it.

Basically, the idea that a single, ideal version of English exists has had wide acceptance for slightly less time than the United States of America has been in existence. This is an eyeblink in the life of a language. And thanks to the global spread of English and widespread acceptance that there are many ways, all fundamentally ‘correct’, to speak and write the language, the idea of a single, pure linguistic standard is dying – among linguists and authors, it is really already dead. Don’t be a slave to a dead linguistic ideology. Embrace difference and celebrate it. So long as we understand one another clearly, all is well.

I were than to start or invent my own math (representing African American grammar and vocabulary because that isn't what's being taught), wouldn't that be along the same lines as being degenerate?

Depends. Does your maths produce the right answers to sums? Say you decided to count in a base 2 (binary) rather than a base 10 (decimal) number system. In such a system, 10 plus 10 equals 100. It looks bizarre, and may confuse your teacher if she doesn’t realize what you’re doing, but in fact it is correct; 10 in binary is 2 in decimal, and 100 in binary is 4 in decimal.

On the other hand, if your invented mathematics kept giving wrong answers (for example, that the circumference of a circle is exactly 3.25 times its diameter), it would be... well, I don’t know about degenerate, but it would certainly be wrong.

Now, which of these two situations do you think is analogous to African-American English? Is it a different way of expressing things clearly and accurately to another speaker of the same dialect, or is it likely to cause misunderstanding?

Language is being invented, or reinvented, all the time. This is done by ordinary folk as well as by authors and poets. Most of these inventions never gain currency or are soon forgotten, but a few go on to further enrich what is already the world’s richest, most diverse, most syncretic and multicultural language. Long may it live, grow, change and prosper.

Btw, I don't always agree with what you say but I sure do enjoy reading your posts.

Many thanks. You could not have paid me a more welcome compliment.

Rednecks are a target in the eyes of the progressive elite. This is social engineering at work. Redneck historically was a term for poor white farmers in the south ( I dont care what miners say). The term was used as an insult by Yankee businessmen and bankers (Carpetbaggers was the reverse insult). The term was used to elevate the user above the target in terms of social class. In the 60's the term became associated with "racists". Because of segragation in the South the term was adopted as a way to elevate the users above an entire region in social terms In the 80's the term was not often used and it lost its racial meanings for the most part and became more of a name for anyone from the "country" and thus less civilized. The term became popular in the 90's again but in a positive way for those who termed themselves as rednecks. This was country people saying that yes indeed they were not from the city and the city's so called civlization was not infact very attractive. Thus being a redneck was not something to be ashamed of.
The current trend is an attempt to associate the term again with so called "racists". This effort is part of an overall plan to associate anyone who does not tow the progressive line to be negative and evil. So you are hearing the term used as a label for someone who is identified as a "racist". When the target is fully identified you will see that they are usually just someone who is "right-wing" or "tea party" ie not a liberal progressive.

Frogs you are indeed correct to link the Southern accent with Irish and Scottish. The South was settled by a vast majority of Scot and Irish (including my ancestors). Along with that accent also came a fierce independence and an general dislike of government and authority.

reply to post by Dragoon01

Frogs you are indeed correct to link the Southern accent with Irish and Scottish. The South was settled by a vast majority of Scot and Irish (including my ancestors).

So, not WASPs, then. Worth noting.

reply to post by Dragoon01


Contemporary "rednecks" don't dislike authority. Remember the Bush administration and how supportive "rednecks" were of them? I live in Texas, and I can guarantee you, "rednecks" don't unconditionally dislike authority.

reply to post by Terrorist


You are mistaking love of country with love of government(authority).
Pick any "redneck" out of a crowd and ask them what they think of two situations.
1. A UN agency announces it will begin tracking food shipments across the globe and so farmers will be required to place a tag on each shipment.
2. The FDA announces that it will begin to track food shipments across the globe and so farmers will be required to place a tag on each shipment.

Odds are you will get the same opinion loaded with contempt.

Redneck/N-word-- How I Understand It:

Redneck is a name that a group of people with similar lifestyles made-up or adopted for themselves a long time ago. Slowly but surely, this nickname has become somewhat tarnished. I believe this is due to a portion of this groups actions and it's being helped along by media spin.

The other word:

A long time ago it was a slang word for an entire race of slaves, used by people who did heinous things to them. Once slaves were free, it became what you called a black person while you were segregating them, or doing more heinous things to them.

I just don't see how these two things are comparable, or how someone couldn't understand why one might be considered more offensive than the other.

reply to post by wingsfan

the term redneck refers to a union mine worker and or striker. many of whom left the south after what many considered a literal war against the corporate thugs.

That is only one possible meaning, and nowadays the least often used. In fact, it is obsolete. What prevents you from consulting a dictionary before you post? I did, and in fact placed a link to the reference in an earlier post.