Travels, Trials, Linguistics and Language Learning
As an English teacher, a linguist, and a language learner who is often tongue-tied and at a loss as to how to communicate what I want to say, I delight in language use. All languages are rule-bound, but those rules are fluid and they get bent and broken abso-fricking-lutely all the time. Like everyone else, I am sometimes a snob. I love the word "ain't," but detest "he don't" or "I seen," and instantly leap to conclusions about the relative education level of the speaker. After spending decades reading student papers, I can spot a grammar error or spelling mistake a mile away. I have struggled to learn multiple languages, and am flummoxed when my carefully constructed sentences are laughed at, or when people use linguistic shortcuts that I haven't learned yet, and thus cannot make sense of what they're saying. My special delight is language errors, whether it be first language, second, third or beyond. My daughter Kate made such wonderful errors all through her childhood we called her Mrs. Malaprop. (Once Al Pacino was filming nearby and she wanted to go see Cappuccino; another time she mentioned that her friend lived in a condom).
