Re: Grammar

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (ivy_mike) wrote:
>> And many children, especially those who've
>> not yet developed abstract thought (most children under 10 or 11
>> years of age) might not even know a steak when they see one, will
>> not understand the importance of that steak to their overall nutrition
>> or well being and will make no more of it than the pablam. Interest
>> and how they act on that interest has nothing to do with intelligence.
>
>But you keep missing the point.  We are talking about correct grammar here,
>nothing more.  When a kid hears (or heard), say, Mr. Rogers speak on
>TV, he or she should be expected to conclude that, most likely, the
>way Mr. Rogers (or Barney, or whomever) pronounces words and puts 
>sentences together is *probably* more correct than the jabber they're
>hearing at home.

Why?  I would think that most children would tend to think the
opposite: that the idiots on TV don't know how to speak English the
proper way that we do at home.

Young children tend to be self-centered; why would they be likely to
think that they and their parents, and not someone else, is "wrong"?

>Is this too much to expect from children today?

Yes.  

Today, there are so many dialects spoken both on TV and in the slums
that kids aren't necessarily going to hear notice any dialect other
than the one they use at home to be a predominant one.

lojbab
-- 
lojbab                                             [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org