Say What?: Part 3

After this morning and every morning of the alarm going off at 7am on the dot, I get the morning news on LBC 97.3 FM. Before my eyes have even opened, and my feet have touched the floor I have my own personal bearer of bad news brought to me in the form of the radio. One morning the first word I heard was raped. Another murdered. And another stabbed. This morning it was 2,000 job losses, which company I cannot remember. I am not starting off my day to this BS anymore. If I have be uniformed then so be it. I looked over the shoulder of somebodies paper yesterday and the headlines was "14 year old girl raped by 9 strong gang" this morning it was about 17 month Baby P how died after literally being used as a punch bag. My stomach can't take anymore.

So I switch to Kiss 100 FM and listen to the morning breakfast show with Ricky and Melvin, and I know I must be getting old, because their show, although entertaining and somewhat funny I find myself cringing at their diction or lack of I should say.

Any word that begins with a T is pronounced as an F

Think becomes Fink
Three becomes Free
Thing becomes Fing
Thanks becomes Fanks

This morning Ricky just made up a whole new word when speaking about the daily competition and said "de-ails"

I was brushing my teeth and thinking WTF, then he repeated it "de-ails"

"Oh, he must mean details" and yes that's what he meant.

Now I am not saying that BAM you have to speak perfect Queen's English with a pompous accent and all, but the accents, dialect and language I hear in London are appalling. Yes ethnic groups had their distinctive tone to their voice and certain slang words we all used like butters [ugly], criss [fine], det [wicked], arms/arms house [fighting] back in the day, but it was never that bad, and I'm talking about the early 90's. Now the whites, Asians you name it all seem to have this English, Jamaican, American 'fing' going on and it's beginning to sound retarded. Sometimes I look at these kids like "are you serious?"

"yea yea ya get me" No I don't get you
"you naw what I'm sayin" No just what in the hell are you saying
"Wha gwan blood" Nothing much…...
"I'm just on da train wiv me and my mans dems, weez goin up New Cross sides." Ooooooooo-kay!

I'm 29 not dead, I know my fair share of Ebonics, street slang, patois to get by and understand, but when me and my friends for the past few years are like, "what in the hell are you talking about?" times have definitely changed. I know when I'm blogging or posting on forum that 'ain't' isn't the correct word to use and more for effect, but the difference between knowing and not knowing are two different things. It's reached new heights and unfortunately accepted. Accepted to the point where text speak is being written by kids taking exams.

How r u goin 2 rite txt spk in an exam + xpect 2 pass?

My first thought when I hear these kids speak is "how are you going to make it through an interview when you probably already have the disadvantage of having a name from the Jodeci era?" Devante and LaKeisha will probably have a harder time than Paul and Claire based on their name alone, if they get an interview that is, because if you didn't already know the ethnic sounding names get moved to the bottom of the pile of CV's [resumes]. So why do yourself a disservice by speaking like you are straight out of the movie Adulthood? You should be able to flex with your peers, parents, co-workers, teachers, like a vocal chameleon.

Thank god I can slip in and out, when the mood or surroundings take me and know that as a permanent trait of mine my accent is pretty much decent. My name sounds white, my face is black, my accent, personality, smarts and being articulate get me the great paying jobs I've had. I really think that at 18 years old when I was interviewing for Citigroup that the 18 year olds from the same area as me would struggle because they cannot articulate or even spell properly to even be taken seriously.

Education and the way we speak for many it seems is a white thing. Nope, it's a RIGHT thing. The mentality it seems is the harder you speak the and the less you learn, the blacker you appear. And straight A's and speaking proper doesn't cut it when you're black. So very wrong. I do think that it is what's drummed into a lot of our youths' heads. Being young and dumb doesn't last forever. When you are out of the safety zone of being a teen, then comes the responsibility of being a tax payer and an employee or an employer managing others.

Ricky and Melvin are probably going to be typecast into working in 'urban' media for a very long time just based on how they speak. Maybe they like it there who knows. But I for one am tired of hearing London/UK radio stations where blacks are presenting and the basic English isn't even being pronounced properly, it's a huge turn-off. It's not about the accent like I said before, Johnny Vaughn isn't a plum in the mouth Brit, but he can string a sentence together without it annoying the hell out of me, I just don't like Capital Radio is all to go and listen to him in the mornings. My favourite station is a Talk Radio station I mentioned earlier LBC and my fave presenter Steve Allen said that not one of the presenters are black and he honestly didn't know why that was.

And please it's not even a colour thing. Truth be told we do it more than anybody else on radio and even Tim Westwood who's white, is guilty of this. Probably the worst one.

I will find a You Tube clip of him later to show you what I'm talking about. A near 50 year old white man talking like that is bloody ridiculous. I don't even care that his show is Hip-Hop. He needs a slap.

And to think I am looking to take a course to teach English overseas, it seems I may need to start at home first with some of these youngin's. Whilst in Malaysia I found that their English was excellent, as was the Iranian woman I spoke to for about 8 hours on the way back from Bangkok. She asked me if her English was OK, I told her to be honest she speaks better English than most people born and raised there.

Ain't dat da truff!