I'm taking a class right now in school that is teaching me all about linguistics. What I love about my professor is her ability to talk like one of us. There is no "professional facade." Having the professor use natural language and not the expected "standard English," in the spoken form, makes the classroom a lot more open. Students are more inclined to speak up, because the pressure of formality is off.

She allowed us to vote ( in a way), of how we should write. Given our overall response, she has allowed us to write our papers in any given form that we choose. She will grade us based on our ability to convey the message, instead of our ability to write "properly."

The thing that I am learning, and should have known a long time ago, is that there really is no "standard English." Language is a forever changing thing. We modernize it. The issue that is not discussed is that people are often judged based on the way we talk. Making fun of someone's accent is actually prejudice, but we condone it simply because we see our way of speaking as the "correct" way.

Think about it? Have you ever been praised for having an amazing ability to speak "properly," and or have you ever been made discouraged for speaking "improperly?" Maybe you noticed you or a friend was not hired because of how you or they spoke?

Without really thinking about it, we make immediate assumptions based on people's ability to speak. We think that theirs is wrong, when in reality there is a lot of history that goes into the English language. The word "ask" was actually originally "ax." I have always hated hearing people pronounce the work "ask" as "ax." But, if you look back in history, "ax" was the original form. We have just changed it overtime.

Language can not be right nor wrong, as long as it's understood.

Just some food for thought...