Informality from Hell

I am sure most of you reading this watched the vice-presidential debate last week between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. If you didn't, you should. Even though Palin disappointed by not being quite as inarticulate as she was with Katie Couric, she still provided enough fodder for another good Saturday Night Live skit (Tina Fey is a genius, btw...).

As much as I pretty much disagree with Palin's orthodoxy--both political and religious--what I mainly took issue with was her colloquial language last Thursday. Let me preface this:

As an English teacher, I spend an amazing amount of time tying to explain the need to be able to code-switch between colloquial slanguage and academic, standard English. This is a difficult subject to bridge as a White girl working in an urban setting. I am cautious not to make my students' language seem "incorrect" and my English seem "proper." I ardently praise the effectiveness and artistry of slanguage when doing creative writing, when writing dialogue, or when talking to friends; it has an important place in society--no doubt. BUT (and this BUT cannot be emphasized enough), a research paper, the SAT essay, a job interview, and the vice presidential debate are NOT such places.

Additionally, I feel she played the gender card with this "down-home" hodge-podge of language. The winking, the body language, the colloquialisms of being "blessed" and "having a special place in heaven" are not expressions that a male candidate could toss out with the same reaction. It reminds me of the time my advisor at Teachers College, LB, took a group of us women doctoral students aside and gave us a pep talk on the dangers of informal speech when trying to be considered an academic. The warnings I remember were: No intonation at the end of the sentence unless it is a bonifide question. No "like" at all, anywhere. No cliches. No being cute, be formal--this might be a school of education, but they will still rip you to shreds if they feel you are not a valid researcher.

This is what Palin deserves. Send those pitbulls that she mentions--lipsticked and all--after her for grammatical negligence. She might think she has a place in heaven, but her language use is certainly going to burn in hell.