You know as an English student you'd think the one thing I'd be able to get right is my own language. Apparently not. As a dyslexic I know I do struggle when it comes to spelling and grammar. Mainly because I was taught neither. When you're dyslexic they mainly focus on reading when you go to special needs classes. So I spent my English lessons learning how to read difficult words. But not how to spell them, and grammar... well the other students could have been taught that for all I know, but for me it was never covered.
This doesn't bother me personally. I know if I write something outside a word document I will spell things how they sound, because that is how they teach you to spell in special needs classes, well because they teach you to read by sounding out the difficult words. So spelling is basically the same principle, master one, master the other. Or I suppose that was the idea. I was never tested on the words themselves, I just spelt them how they sounded in my head.
Grammar, well that is all self taught from reading books and having people badger on at me about the importance of commas. I still have not mastered the use of commas. I just throw them in when I think there is a need for a pause. I write how I would speak it. Or speak it in my head, as that is just how I write. So I guess my use of grammar is clumsy and unnatural. But to me it seems natural even if it is used wrong. I guess I just don't understand it. Which is fair enough, because I was never taught it properly. But as things go considering how I am mostly self taught spelling and grammar wise I am really not that bad.
Which is why it pisses me off when my flat mate berates me because I apparently don't use language properly according to him. Now I can put up with being insulted online because my spelling or grammar is terrible. I've taken the abuse, and I've approved because of it. But it just pisses me off when my flat mate gets all irate because I like to use 'pants' instead of 'trousers'. Just because it's an American slang. So what? What is wrong with using pants instead of trousers? trousers is such a clumsy word. Trow-zers. It doesn't flow off the tongue, where Pants... it's just well... pants! And being a dyslexic I'm more likely to replace one with the other because in my head I know what both mean. but he's like "Pants are underwear" But really who uses Pants to describe underwear anymore? I don't call my knickers pants. Because they're knickers. I don't call things pants, because they're thongs! I don't call boxers pants, because they're boxers! I don't call briefs pants because they're briefs! And if I want to refer to all as a whole I'll call them underwear, because they are underwear! But trousers, it's a clumsy word, and pants is just a much easier substitute, definitely if you're thinking of a certain type of trousers. I'd think tight fitting jeans were more pants than trousers, because they're tight. It just fits the word. where smart black trousers for work would be trousers, because they're formal! It just fits. I don't want to use such a formal word for such an informal thing! Definitely when pants just rolls off the tongue so much easier than trousers!
But no, that's not what pissed me off the most about his anti-Americanism. Yesterday I apparently said Glacier wrong. apparently I said it the 'American way', which is wrong! I said it as Gla-ci-er. Which as a Dyslexic is how I READ IT! h
How can pronouncing something a certain way be wrong? Definitely if you've been taught to read things like that, because you have learning disabilities. It just makes me angry and frustrated. I can put up with his whole anti-pant's thing, even if it is logically stupid. But how can I pronounce a word incorrectly, how is pronouncing it like that American? with the wide range of dialects in the UK and America I would imagine each one pronounces the word differently. It's just... bigoted to class a certain way of pronouncing a word as American because his heard Americans say it that way. I'd like to see him storm up to Yorkshire and yell at them for speaking in the wrong dialect. I just don't get how one can pronounce a word wrong! For all he knows everyone in Kent says it Gla-ci-er instead of gla-cier. but that doesn't matter, because that's how Americans speak. and they apparently speak wrong. That is just stupid!
He almost argued with me the other day about how it is wrong to measure snow in inches. But everyone measures snow in inches! I don';t care if the UK is meant to use the imperial system! EVERYONE DOES IT!
Urgh, I don't get how people can be like this. It upsets me. As both an English student and a dyslexic.
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