In the short clip, McWhorter likens Trump’s speech to that of a drunken, poolside, uncle and belittles his repeated use of certain phrases. He argues that Trump has a small vocabulary, and that he is the first president to not show any effort in making his speech more formal.

In the article, he expands on the claims made in the video and focuses more on what Trump’s speech says about him, rather than just calling him out for having ‘poor’ speech. McWhorter claims that Trump’s language use is simply unmonitored speech, and that given his powerful position as president of the United States, the contexts of when he uses language almost always ‘require’ more calculated, planned speech. He acknowledges that regular citizens make grammar and Tweet-orthography ‘mistakes,’ but that in Trump’s case it connotes a careless attitude. 

As much as I dislike Trump (and that’s a lot), I do find it interesting that McWhorter backsteps on his typical descriptivist stance to criticize him. I think that we should definitely hold Trump to a higher standard in all aspects of life, but I wonder if his simple speech pattern is actually something that helps him reach his supporters. In addition, I wonder how biases about Trump’s politics affects how we view his language use; especially in McWhorter’s case (and my own) I think it is easier to criticize Trump’s language because we already do not like him. 

This relates to our class topic of speech style because McWhorter’s consensus was that Trump’s use of style is almost always inappropriate because any time he speaks he is representing our country. Across different contexts, Trump does not seem to style-shift away from his typical, informal, basic speech that has become infamous and a target for many comedic impressions. I wonder if the threat of losing the presidency will cause him to evaluate his language use and formalize his speech in public contexts.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwnpa3KhT4Y

My personal stance on this argument leans more towards Ferro’s stance. However, I think that using an app like Just Not Sorry might be helpful in showing women how often they use softening terms because I personally do it subconsciously. While I do not think that we should police women’s speech whatsoever, I do think we as a society should get to the root issue of why women feel that they must soften their statements and requests. I think that this is less of an issue about changing the way women speak, and more about creating a workplace environment where women do not always feel like they are imposing on others.

Knowing that this was simply a case of metathesis, I found two articles, one from Dr. John McWhorter for the LA Times, and the other from NPR WNYC, explaining the cultural significance of ‘aks’ and how it began as a simple variation, but ended up as an identity marker for black Americans. 

I was surprised to find that the form originated as ‘acsian’ and ‘ask’ is the true case of metathesis. This proves further how the prescriptivist judgement of ‘aks’ being a marker of poor education is really just rooted in systemic racism (whether the judge intends it or not). I was also surprised to find in both articles that many black Americans want to eliminate the ‘aks’ form, or at least teach young speakers to code-switch to the MAE form ‘ask’ in high-stakes situations such as a job interview. 

While McWhorter’s article focused on the tragedy that is prescriptivism and judgements against ‘aks,’ I liked that the NPR story covered the fact that ‘ask’ might get AAE speakers (and other ‘aks’ users) ahead in formal situations, but ‘aks’ has a positive effect in social situations amongst other ‘aks’ users and can be a powerful in-group marker which brings people together. 

As does McWhorter, I hope that the use of ‘aks’ becomes less stigmatized in the future, and I think citing the data that this word originates as ‘acsian’ is a powerful persuading tool to prescriptivists that want to uphold some sort of “original” language.

I saw this series of images floating around on social media the other day and wanted to comment on it. I recognize that although we never talked about it in class, xenophobia can play a critical role in whether a language or non-standard variants are considered “acceptable” and that the history of a country, especially one that was colonized, also plays a role. This reminded me of the Official English movement that occurred here in the United States that we talked about in class. It’s astonishing that so many people could think that English is the official language of a country just because it’s dominant even though no one has ever told them that, and then personally take it upon themselves to police that. Additionally, even if English was the official language of Australia, that would stop governments from distributing materials in other languages, but would it prohibit businesses from doing so? At what point do such policies cross the line to violent racism?
https://www.popsugar.com.au/tech/photo-gallery/39705664/image/39705665/We-believe-Australia-welcoming-inclusive-society/amp

In this song and in many blues songs, "jelly roll" is used as a euphemism for female genitalia. I've included a link to an article from the American Blues Scene about the origins and usage of "jelly roll" in blues music. Culinary euphemisms for sex seem to appear somewhat frequently in jazz from the twentieth century; "cake" is also used in this recording. In general, jazz has a whole lot of slang terms- they might function as a form of covert prestige among musicians and listeners, or be used as euphemisms to address topics in music that would otherwise be considered inappropriate in public performance.

https://www.americanbluesscene.com/language-blues-jelly-roll/