Stories you may have missed

I guess it’s about time that I explain what I mean when I say; “Language is not about correctness, it’s about communicating.”

I was raised in a culture of people that was comprised of ranchers, farmers, commercial fishermen, loggers, and lumber workers. Their heritage was either, born and raised here and had been here for generations and had little chance for higher education. Or recently moved here from one of the “poor states” to work in the lumber industry. The latter group also had little or poor education. My point is that I was raised with people that made their living by working hard, and they did manual labor. Higher education was not of much use to them. You couldn’t even slop a hog with higher education.

Most of my people, as I like to call them, admired educated people and would show them great deference, they would usually quiet down around an educated person. When there was an educated person in the group; that person always had the first and last say. When an educated person wanted to take over a conversation they would usually start it out with something like; “There is no such word as “ain’t”, usually in the context of correcting someone else. That always gave the educated person the floor because my people didn’t talk without words like “ain’t”. Their language was colorfully sprinkled with contractions and colloquialisms. To me their language was like a carefully thought out poem. And I loved to hear them talk. I knew from being around them, that some of them were the smartest and wisest people that existed anywhere. I knew their language, and I didn’t interrupt them with rude “correctness”.
I was always far more interested in what the working people had to say than some of the crashing, crushingly boring, educated people. It always bothered me that my people would stop telling stories around the “educated”.

It was easy for me to see the wisdom and wit that my people had. Today, few people understand Shakespeare, but after studying Shakespeare, and figuring out exactly what he said, most all of us would agree that he was one of the most witty, romantic and, gutsy of all story tellers. He could put feeling and wisdom into everything that he said, and once we know his language, nothing can be more enjoyable than reading Shakespeare.

It has always been deeply annoying to me to hear someone correct another persons language. To me it has always appeared to be a not-to-polite way of telling another person to shut-up.

We would no more think of telling Shakespeare to shut up than we would any highly respected person. What I’m trying to say is I have always highly respected “my people”, and they were always comfortable talking around me, and I have heard tales that some of you would see as a new work of Shakespeare…. If you had taken the time to listen, without correcting the language.

Something that you might not have known about Shakespeare;
“The most striking feature of Shakespeare is his command of language. It is all the more astounding when one not only considers Shakespeare's sparse formal education but the curriculum of the day. There were no dictionaries; Although certain grammatical treatises were published in Shakespeare's day, organized grammar texts would not appear until the 1700s. Shakespeare as a youth would have no more systematically studied his own language than any educated man of the period.
His facility with language, and the art with which he employed its usage, is why Shakespeare is as relevant today as he was in his own time.”

Most of my people are dead and gone now, so it makes little difference who you correct. Today’s society is rife with rudeness and it is expected. But have you ever corrected anyone that was in the middle of telling a great story? Do you now wonder what story that you might have missed? To me "my people" were wiser than the educated, and more articulate than Shakespeare. But you have to listen, and learn the languge.

“What, is the jay more precious than the lark Because his feathers are more beautiful? Or is the adder better than the eel Because his painted skin contents the eye? “
William Shakespeare

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you have story that you want to tell, tell it here.

I don’t know how to use most of the words in the English dictionary, and care little if I ever use them. If I can tell you a story, or you can tell me one, that is what this blog is all about. I don’t give a damn how good you spell or how bad you talk. I'll accept swearing if that's how the hell you tell your story, I speak the language. I’ll delete with-out a trace, any criticism about how you use your "languge".

I want to hear history, I want to hear tall tales, and I want to hear bald face lies. But I want to hear your stories. I want any little known fact, I want any recipe, I want anything to do with the north coast…Even if it starts with; “I heard from somebody that heard from somebody that this story is absolute fact!’

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I failed Enlgish in high school. If I can communicate, so can you. If I would be offended by anything, it would be if you tried to talk like somebody you aren’t. So, start telling me things! Learn to spell later. I did.

"This above all: to thine own self be true". (Willie again)