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Allie Webster Birth Watch - She's Here!


Ursula

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Oh god, now i'm a leghumper because I think grammatical elitism is steeped in racism, classism, and ableism? Give me a break. Just because John is extremely privileged doesn't mean that the root of *why* you criticize grammar isn't fucked up.

This post talks specifically about why grammar snobbery has no place in social justice movements, but it should obviously be applied outside of that as well, as we cannot detach ourselves from dynamics of privilege and oppression in everyday life.

everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/grammar-snobbery/

Okay, at first your posts just made me roll my eyes a bit. I reminded myself that many of us were recent college graduates once, high on our overinflated self-importance. Then when the pretension and condescension just increased in your comments, I occasionally began to wonder if you were perhaps a troll trying to make fun of the liberal arts stereotype. And then there was this:

"I think grammatical elitism is steeped in racism, classism, and ableism."

That is some brilliant satire, my friend Ofglen. (Though I'm going to recommend you make at least every third post a comment without an "ism" or the word "privilege" in it. You're leaning on those pretty hard and moving from satire to caricature.)

If by some unfortunate chance, you are actually just a terribly misguided recent grad regurgitating exciting new ideas you just learned about, you can PM me and I'll send you my email address. Five to seven years from now we can reread your post above with some sangria and laugh our asses off. Don't worry, I have some real humdingers from that time in my life as well that I'll share.**

(Note, if you would like to see an example of a very educated poster who does provoke more intellectual discourse and links to outside material without coming off as condescending and/or desperately insecure, I recommend going to Cleopatra7's profile and reading through her posts.)

**I apologize for my ageist micro-aggression there, and blatant demonstration of elder privilege. I'm sure you have a blog post you can post a link to in order to educate me more about the topic.

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For what it's worth, I know plenty of college educated people who went to well respected private schools and their grammar is shit on instagram/facebook. Not saying it's a good thing but bad grammar among young people seems to be a 'thing' these days regardless of education background. I know someone with a masters degree who constantly mixes up 'your/you're' on her instagram.

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For what it's worth, I know plenty of college educated people who went to well respected private schools and their grammar is shit on instagram/facebook. Not saying it's a good thing but bad grammar among young people seems to be a 'thing' these days regardless of education background. I know someone with a masters degree who constantly mixes up 'your/you're' on her instagram.

But that is not the point. These people praise the superiority of their system of homeschooling and then produce kids who are undereducated. Alyssa, John, Chad, etc, had no chance to choose to get a good post-secondary education with a career path. A congressman's son works as a night janitor. A successful licensed chiropractor's son works in a machine shop. There is absolutely zero wrong with those careers, but these highly educated people (not the Duggars, BTW, but Chad, John and Alyssa's parents all have college or post grad degrees) hobble their children and when they do attend college, it is the unaccredited Clown College or IBLP bible school. All the while, they preach the superiority of their educational choices for their children.

Then John pops up with a thousand grammar mistakes in social media. Of course people jump on it. This is a snark board. No, for normal people, punctuation and grammar mistakes on social media are careless, but, given the educational backgrounds of these people and the attitude behind it, the snarkies will snark.

I doubt John was just being careless, and I doubt, despite the poster who "assure(s) you" that Alyssa is well-equipped to teach her children, that the second generation of these fundie homeschoolers will get a decent education. That is one reason why when someone pops up with a bunch of "-isms" about why it is okay to be barely literate, eyes must roll. Hobbling education and critical thinking skills is par for the course with fundie homeschoolers. Most fundie homeschoolers are not Meaghan Carver, a former lawyer with a husband with advanced math skills. Instead, they are producing a generation that cannot possibly be as successful as they were because they are intentionally not equipping their kids with enough education to make it through a modern world. And that is a sin.

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But that is not the point. These people praise the superiority of their system of homeschooling and then produce kids who are undereducated. Alyssa, John, Chad, etc, had no chance to choose to get a good post-secondary education with a career path. A congressman's son works as a night janitor. A successful licensed chiropractor's son works in a machine shop. There is absolutely zero wrong with those careers, but these highly educated people (not the Duggars, BTW, but Chad, John and Alyssa's parents all have college or post grad degrees) hobble their children and when they do attend college, it is the unaccredited Clown College or IBLP bible school. All the while, they preach the superiority of their educational choices for their children.

Then John pops up with a thousand grammar mistakes in social media. Of course people jump on it. This is a snark board. No, for normal people, punctuation and grammar mistakes on social media are careless, but, given the educational backgrounds of these people and the attitude behind it, the snarkies will snark.

I doubt John was just being careless, and I doubt, despite the poster who "assure(s) you" that Alyssa is well-equipped to teach her children, that the second generation of these fundie homeschoolers will get a decent education. That is one reason why when someone pops up with a bunch of "-isms" about why it is okay to be barely literate, eyes must roll. Hobbling education and critical thinking skills is par for the course with fundie homeschoolers. Most fundie homeschoolers are not Meaghan Carver, a former lawyer with a husband with advanced math skills. Instead, they are producing a generation that cannot possibly be as successful as they were because they are intentionally not equipping their kids with enough education to make it through a modern world. And that is a sin.

Exactly.

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*looks*

Still not noticing any. Okay, definitely too late at night here :P

This is driving me mad. I usually notice these things!

If it's really driving you nuts, and you can tell me how to private message you, I can do that. Otherwise, I'd rather not publicly call someone out for grammar/punctuation violations. We all know that they are sometimes archaic, that people communicate just fine on a daily basis without following them to the letter, and that they indicate nothing about the person's intellect or education level.

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I do know a lot about English grammar, and I notice the mistakes, but they don't bother me, and I don't usually draw conclusions about the poster's education or intellect. What DOES cause me a chuckle, though, is when the posts from the people COMPLAINING about the grammar contain errors. I am tempted to ask the posters where THEY went to school.

You construct that mess of a compound sentence to criticize others? Good one.

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If it's really driving you nuts, and you can tell me how to private message you, I can do that. Otherwise, I'd rather not publicly call someone out for grammar/punctuation violations. We all know that they are sometimes archaic, that people communicate just fine on a daily basis without following them to the letter, and that they indicate nothing about the person's intellect or education level.

Nah, it's fine. I'm (mostly) joking; I don't really care that much :lol:

I am curious, though, if one of them is punctuation outside of quotation marks? Just because I've seen that one here and I know it often reads as a mistake to North Americans but is actually correct in British English where the punctuation is not part of what's being quoted. The funny thing about grammar rules is that they're not even consistent between different forms of English :P

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Nah, it's fine. I'm (mostly) joking; I don't really care that much :lol:

I am curious, though, if one of them is punctuation outside of quotation marks? Just because I've seen that one here and I know it often reads as a mistake to North Americans but is actually correct in British English where the punctuation is not part of what's being quoted. The funny thing about grammar rules is that they're not even consistent between different forms of English :P

No, it's not. I know about the British/Canadian quotation mark rules. It's so true that the rules are inconsistent. I noticed that a lot of general usage changed as computers became more common. Spell check and grammar check standardized a lot of usage and usually went with the simplest versions.

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Okay, at first your posts just made me roll my eyes a bit. I reminded myself that many of us were recent college graduates once, high on our overinflated self-importance. Then when the pretension and condescension just increased in your comments, I occasionally began to wonder if you were perhaps a troll trying to make fun of the liberal arts stereotype. And then there was this:

"I think grammatical elitism is steeped in racism, classism, and ableism."

That is some brilliant satire, my friend Ofglen. (Though I'm going to recommend you make at least every third post a comment without an "ism" or the word "privilege" in it. You're leaning on those pretty hard and moving from satire to caricature.)

If by some unfortunate chance, you are actually just a terribly misguided recent grad regurgitating exciting new ideas you just learned about, you can PM me and I'll send you my email address. Five to seven years from now we can reread your post above with some sangria and laugh our asses off. Don't worry, I have some real humdingers from that time in my life as well that I'll share.**

(Note, if you would like to see an example of a very educated poster who does provoke more intellectual discourse and links to outside material without coming off as condescending and/or desperately insecure, I recommend going to Cleopatra7's profile and reading through her posts.)

**I apologize for my ageist micro-aggression there, and blatant demonstration of elder privilege. I'm sure you have a blog post you can post a link to in order to educate me more about the topic.

Yeah, I'll make sure to stop talking about privilege and oppression because some old, out of touch person on the internet told me to.:cracking-up: :cracking-up: :cracking-up:

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Alba, I saw another error from someone who is ESL and a couple of other things are not standard in American English (I lived and worked in the UK, and my husband is from New Zealand, so I am somewhat versed in the differences. I have to be super careful with what my husband tells my son when he is helping him with homework). I think it is funny that someone who threw stones at the stone throwers did it with such a mess of a sentence, a sentence that demonstrated she completely missed the OP's point in the initial criticism.

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Yeah, I'll make sure to stop talking about privilege and oppression because some old, out of touch person on the internet told me to.:cracking-up: :cracking-up: :cracking-up:

You would be wise to think through what she said, but you obviously won't. This, despite the fact that you tend to repost random strangers' internet articles as absolute truth to prove your points. Again, you missed the point of what the poster is saying to you and PROVED her point brilliantly with your reply.

If you want to be taken seriously by anyone when you talk about issues like oppression and privilege, then you need to learn to do that in a way that demonstrates critical thinking and proper application. Throwing out articles and big words does not make you intellectual or correct in your thinking. Taking principals and/or concepts and correctly applying them to a situation is part and parcel of a proper discussion of larger issues. Calling posters here steeped in classicism or elitism because they rightly point out that a highly privileged, well-connected white American male was failed by his education does not exactly show off your critical thinking skills or show an intellectual openness.

People around here like to discuss these issues and often do. But you are going to be called out when you are so far off course and when your posts don't even make sense in the context of the discussion.

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No, it's not. I know about the British/Canadian quotation mark rules. It's so true that the rules are inconsistent. I noticed that a lot of general usage changed as computers became more common. Spell check and grammar check standardized a lot of usage and usually went with the simplest versions.

I've noticed that with Canadian spellings in particular, thanks to Microsoft Word defaulting to US English. Technically, all those words that end in -ize in US English and -ise in British English can be spelled either way in Canadian English, but -ize is more common. I got into an argument with my grade 9 English teacher because she told me I'd misspelt one of them, when I *knew* I hadn't.

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Hmm. I always thought that "baby sleeping so good" and capitalizing for emphasis were pretty common in unformal context among Americans. I'm non-native dyslexic speaker so I thought to check.

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Look who's already back in jeans!

ggjswIcl.jpg

ETA: On the right is her SIL Tori, right? Anybody know who the friend in the middle is?

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Look who's already back in jeans!

ggjswIcl.jpg

I feel like Alyssa is wearing jeans as if to say, "Hey, look, I have legs! I'm NOT a Victorian." This rebellion must be a huge step for her. You Go Girl!

The next question is, when will we see her in shorts? I'm taking bets...

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I feel like Alyssa is wearing jeans as if to say, "Hey, look, I have legs! I'm NOT a Victorian." This rebellion must be a huge step for her. You Go Girl!

The next question is, when will we see her in shorts? I'm taking bets...

Wow, she looks great!

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Oh for pity's sake - grammar snobbery IS steeped in ableism, racism, and classism. That's not difficult to work out. However throwing that at people who generally are on the side of the Bates and Duggar children who have been let down by their parents' educational neglect does nobody any favours. The Bates and Duggars are racially privileged, pretty class privileged, and able privileged as far as we know. They have however been neglected by an abusive educational and religious programme, and their parents. Their spelling mistakes aren't down to a public school system that works against black children, or being parented by undocumented migrants, or having developmental disabilities. 'Calling out oppression' against um, white middle-class able-bodied Americans, is not exactly very social justice-y.

I am an unashamed fan of social justice, not so much of it being misused and ultimately giving the oppressors a pass. Call out Gothard, not Jingerites pointing out spelling errors.

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Oh for pity's sake - grammar snobbery IS steeped in ableism, racism, and classism. That's not difficult to work out. However throwing that at people who generally are on the side of the Bates and Duggar children who have been let down by their parents' educational neglect does nobody any favours. The Bates and Duggars are racially privileged, pretty class privileged, and able privileged as far as we know. They have however been neglected by an abusive educational and religious programme, and their parents. Their spelling mistakes aren't down to a public school system that works against black children, or being parented by undocumented migrants, or having developmental disabilities. 'Calling out oppression' against um, white middle-class able-bodied Americans, is not exactly very social justice-y.

I am an unashamed fan of social justice, not so much of it being misused and ultimately giving the oppressors a pass. Call out Gothard, not Jingerites pointing out spelling errors.

Super foxy comment, Moxy. All I could think about in that discussion is what

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez would say about the oppression of white middle class American Protestants! It would have been quite interesting!

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Egads! It's another grammar discussion!

*backs away slowly before she can make a grammatical error*

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Oh I have no horse in the grammar race - I often have brain fog or low spoons and make mistakes because of that. There's no shame in making errors. There is shame in being a parent and deliberately stunting your child's educational development because of religion.

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Egads! It's another grammar discussion!

*backs away slowly before she can make a grammatical error*

I agree Firiel. What started out as discussion over a cute baby turned into a debate over grammatical mistakes. The Bateses and Duggars are products of the SOTDRT, what else can we expect? I mean, obviously people who attend public school don't always have impeccable grammar, but this is just silly. Come on, this is Free Jinger, there must be more pressing things to discuss than grammar and spelling errors.

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I feel like Alyssa is wearing jeans as if to say, "Hey, look, I have legs! I'm NOT a Victorian." This rebellion must be a huge step for her. You Go Girl!

The next question is, when will we see her in shorts? I'm taking bets...

well, summer is coming up. she'll definitely be in bermudas at the least. not sure if we'll see photographic evidence, but i have no doubt she'll be in them.

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Alyssa looks great, and Allie Jane is a beautiful baby. The new Webster family could have such a wonderful life if they could just break free of Fundie life.

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I suspect it may take a little longer to see a picture of her in shorts or a regular bathing suit. She probably wears both now but doesn't want to display all of her new wardrobe at once. She is still receiving disapproving comments about wearing jeans and sleeveless tops. Those people (and Kelly) might have a complete meltdown if she dared to show off her shorts on instagram :roll:

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well, summer is coming up. she'll definitely be in bermudas at the least. not sure if we'll see photographic evidence, but i have no doubt she'll be in them.

Yup. Living in Florida without shorts and tanks is hell. I don't know how the Kellers do it, tbh. I lived in the north part of Fla for a few months, including summer (which really, let's face it, is year-round). If I could have walked around town naked without getting cited, I probably would have. The humidity is unreal. Clothes become very uncomfortable, very fast. And this is from someone who is totally used to Georgia summers.

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