Rod MacKenzie’s comments about the standard of English on Thought Leader (see the box, below) are well taken. It is, sometimes, difficult to follow contributions by bloggers and commentators, not all of which can be explained by actual language skills, or lack thereof. Some of it may have to do with a lack of reading skills. I want to suggest that much of the difficulty in following contributions is that some commentators tend to misread posts and comments and submit their views based on misperception … Nonetheless I want to make two points.
The first is that one ought, perhaps, not be too pedantic about language; it is, as surely it has to be, a dynamic living thing that tends to change over time. The second point is that English may well be the second, or even the third language of most contributors to Thought Leader. This latter point is complicated even further, of course, by the imperialist status of English. Let me start with the inherent dynamism of language.
Language is Adopted and Adapted
Language tends to be inherently part of culture. On the basis that culture is usually inherited, handed down or acquired through secular processes, we can say that humans adopt habits and language from other people either willingly (as adults) or unwillingly (as children) and adapt both to match changing social conditions. The way we speak is usually, therefore, quite dynamic. Some languages change quite significantly over time; others have retained important continuities. From a United States National Science Foundation project I recently picked up the following passage:
“Before a language can change, speakers must adopt new words, sentence structures and sounds, spread them through the community and transmit them to the next generation. According to many linguists … children serve as agents for language change when, in the process of learning the language of previous generations, they internalise it differently and propagate a different variation of that language.”
The relevant points in the above passage are “new words”, new “sentence structures” and generational changes and variations. Now, across time generational changes may be marginal, in other instances they may be quite dramatic… For example, while Japanese is thought to have changed relatively little over several centuries, English evolved quite rapidly in just a few centuries -– in some ways beyond recognition. With regard to Japanese, it is possible, for instance, to read some of the oldest written forms of Japanese from the 7th century. Since then, however, Japanese has changed, but retained important continuities, to the extent that one can draw the conclusion that basically the same language is spoken among the Japanese people today. In terms of English, very many English speakers may find 16th century texts by Shakespeare rather difficult. Worst still, Chaucer’s original (14th century) Canterbury Tales is almost impossible to read. It becomes difficult, therefore, to be too pedantic about English.
Linguistic Research has established that language change spreads through and develops pari passu with populations. One such project, which looks at almost 1 000 years of English and which includes detailed examination of at least 4-million words/texts has helped researchers track changes in language and establish language learning patterns among different groups. This research helps locate language shifts in a historical context and examines links between language learning and social change.
So, to apply a single basis, or a particular set of criteria for evaluating language, which I assume MacKenzie has done, one that is socially determined in a polyglot cultural environment like South Africa, becomes problematic. It is safe to state that at least 80 percent of South Africans do not speak English as a first language. To evaluate the way we, South Africans, speak on the basis of standard or pedantic English, as assumed to be spoken by the English, is unfair. The English people speak in different countries around the world differs significantly and outside the Wenao (Western Europe, North America and Oceania), a very small population speak English as their first language
English as a Second Language
Speaking only for myself, English is not my first language. Afrikaans is my moeder taal, but I acquired some language skills in Xhosa (from my childhood in eRhini), in Arabic (my family are Muslim), a smattering of early Melayu (through familial perceptions of an Ethnic identity) some Portuguese (our neighbours for a while were from Mozambique) and, of course, touches of English through various media. It was not until I was 18 or 19 that I began to formally teach myself and receive any meaningful instruction in English -– by which time it was probably “too late”.
According to Helen Neville, a cognitive neuroscientist, “If we leave language learning too late, then these systems will not develop normally.” For complete fluency, she found, exposure to a second language needs to occur before the age of 11. So, I even though I may write and teach in English, and may seem comfortable with the language, I can not/will not claim to be fluent. And then there is the issue of imperialism …
By imperialism I refer to two issues, the one being the way that English dominates the world, and the other is that way in which discourse is set on what counts as “proper” English. In the first instance, we can look very briefly at the way that English has become fairly unchallenged as the main language of academia around the world. Such is the near complete hegemony of English in higher learning that scholars and institutions that do not use English face serious problems with funding, exposure, knowledge-sharing and credibility. This might change, of course. We may recall that during the 13th century Latin was once the exclusive language of teaching and scholarship at universities in Europe. This dominance helped internationalisation of universities and (on the downside) allowed the Catholic Church to dominate intellectual and academic life almost completely. That was until Martin Luther and the rise of nationalism challenged and then displaced Latin with national languages.
Finally, moving more directly to McKenzie’s concerns, I suspect he may be particularly unhappy with the English writing style of some of the best writers from Africa and Asia; people like Arundhati Roy -– especially in The God of Small Things -– have turned aspects of English pedantry on its head. As one person (I forget whom) said of Roy’s book: “The great pleasure of The God of Small Things flows from its language and its delight in verbal comedy.”
If MacKenzie has problems with the misuse/abuse of English, he may be denying himself the pleasure of some of the best English writing -– not much of which is by people who speak English as a first language, or hail from pukka English families in Britain. I sincerely hope I misunderstood his complaints about our lack of English language skills. I suspect I may well have done so….
well put, Ismail. Rod must just get a life. As someone once said, English is no longer the prerogative of its native speakers. It belongs to all the children of Mother Earth.
Is it not true that there was a time when The Queen believed that Americans spoke atrocious English?
People like Rod love nit-picking, are always preoccupied with being ‘baases’ and rarely try to improve their reading or listening skills.
Well, his problem is not our problem. Can he speak Zulu or Xhosa? Who is more cosmopolitan between a so-called white man who speaks only English – and not that well, too – and a Zulu or Xhosa who speaks his native tongue and English.
I dont think you should have bothered to respond to Rod. But, well, YOU are Zulu, my dear brother.
Any language is living and as a result certain aspects become more or less popular. However that is not an excuse to butcher and be disrespctful toward it.
Pure and simple – Like any good grammar.
It would be unfair to extend your argument and suggest that you may be calling McKenzie a pedant. I enjoy good writing, especially that which is skilful and articulate. Some posters’ use of English is, simply, atrocious, for any number of reasons. Put another way, they are not Roy by any stretch of the imagination. While I m’self am fairly pedantic about decent sentence construction and vocabulary, I do hope that no-one would have the temerity to suggest that this equates to stubbornness and lack of imagination or, worse, a limited world view. These three attributes characterise many of the authors of messages on these blogs, and their abuse of language often reinforces their obvious enjoyment of these qualities.
Rod McKenzie is a language teacher. Due to the nature of their work they have the ability to detect grammar and spelling mistakes better than anything Bill Gates can ever hope to create.
I can understand his frustration – he must feel like a classical pianist listing to four year old children trying to play “chopsticks” when he reads our posts.
BUT
Although I have read English extensively since high school and I have an excellent vocabulary, I know my grammar is far from perfect. This is mainly due to the fact that English is my second language. But at least I went to the trouble of learning his language. Maybe he should rather respect that and not comment on our “atrocious English”.
SO
I suggest he do what teachers do best and give us a mark out of ten for grammar and spelling. It will help us with our English and he can relieve the stress caused by our “bad syntax”. Could be fun.
@ Ismael
My mother tongue is English.
I live in Germany, where having English as a first language can be both a blessing and a curse. Of course my written German particularly, is sorely lacking, but due to my English skills, I have found a niche for myself (this is so since, as you have correctly identified, English is currently “the” international language).
Nevertheless, and although I know how frustrating is when once faces restraints on one’s writing/speaking abilitites in a second or third language, I would not be so presumptious as to consider my German language writing good enough to expect Germans readers to slog through on a Forum called Thought Leader.
What I am saying is – since TL is an English language medium, I do think the bloggers should meet basic “English English” standards. Otherwise I suppose you could also call my primitive efforts at German, the new German too?
I do not think this same standard should apply to readers making comments. In fact I appreciate the diversity there (comments are shorter and those commenting are not holding themselves to the standards of a Thought Leader).
By the way the interesting thing about the German language is that the spelling of words and grammar is official and binding on schools/governments departments and the like. Changes or development to the language must be officially approved by the Culture ministers in the various local states. The spelling (called Rechtsschreibregeln) was most recently formally amended in 2006.
I really had to chuckle at the irony. It is funny that a language teacher criticizing the improper use of language would employ the following grammatical structure “…(why do I even have to say that? Because of other bloggers’ atrocious English, who shall not be named.” Perhaps I should go back to school, because this is not the way I was taught to construct a sentence!
I think that well written prose is a plus, but one must not get too bloody pedantic about it. I think that most people try to really write well (If you can spot the split infinitive good for you, if it bothers you get over yourself). There are the incoherent rants about ‘nogals’ and such strange things, but often a poorly written blog or comment is a reflection of language skills and not intelligence or validity. In some cases the pedantic shift is to dismiss a comment that the author has no valid response to and is also a vile/violent way to suggest their own superiority.
Does that include the use of Scots English or various UK dialects, several of which can be traced back several hundred years, which means they pre date South Africa and can claim to be more “proper” and traditional than South African Dialect.
Or is that just scunners blethering?
As a learner of other languages and a teacher of English, based in Spain – I feel that English is considerably a lot easier language to learn than a lot of others. In Spanish for example, each verb has about 30 to 40 different forms based on its tense and subject. English has inconsistincies(like all languages do), but it is still considerably easier to learn than most of the other most spoken languages world wide. With the world becoming more accesible and globalisation encouraging more people of different languages wanting to communicate with each other, a communication medium is important – thus if the worlds second most spoken language (and also one of the easiest to learn)is adopted as the communication medium – thats not imperialism, just common sense.
Hi Folks
I don’t want this to be an attack on macca… seriously. he seems like a decent fellow. let it be known that i work hard every day at improving my grammar. In recent years I have had to move from writing as a journalist (where I was not very good), to writing as an academic (where I am apparently not good either); writing in English as I learnt over the years, to writing the way it is done in the United States. For example, I have always been used to saying, “I will see you on Friday” while in the USA you say, “I will see you Friday”… I have always been used to saying. “How will ‘A’ impact on ‘B’ to how will ‘A’ impact ‘B’… the most difficult transition is the new ways of using words. It is befuddling. Here they would say things like, “he should be consequenced” or (WTF!?), i will be there momentarily to mean i will be there in a few minutes…. oh, and i have had to learn to ignore split infinitives – EVEN IN MY OWN WRITING!!!
It’s not easy for someone with limited language skills to start with – like myself.
So, this should not be a personal attack on macca
let us stay with what he/I wrote. In his defence; as for commentaries on blogs, email and text messages – i am terrible, terrible. i don’t capitalise, don’t check spelling etc.. I have a close friend who is copy editor and who refuses to open email from me…
l8r B)
@Ismail: Nicely written, but just a tad defensive. Rod McKenzie has really pinged your not-so-funny bone
English is surely the most polyglot language of all, drawing as it does from Roman, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and even Viking colonial invasions of the UK. Its bizarre that the only indigenous English are those around the perimeters of what we today call England (excluding the Celts). Anglo Saxon is in itself a colonial culture imported from Europe. While its fashionable to demonise English with an imperialistic tag, there are, as you point out many distinct pidgin dialects. Each colonial settlement developed its own character and sometimes truly charming variations. On the Indian subcontinent there are still many who use highly verbose and florid old fashioned English, filled with sweeping malapropisms, my favourite of which is the Pakistani cricket commentator habit of referring to an “expensive” rather than “expansive” shot and inimitable KZN MEC for Sport, Armichand Rajbansi, “double crossing his bridges”. English speaking people have been oppressed by successive governments in SA. The Nats used to inflict “ware van die plaas” announcers on SABC, who could barely string three words of English together. The ANC now inflicts African announcers with similar disabilities to mangle our language, while any xhosa-ism or Sotho accent in a SABC Zulu program has Sandile Mamela and the whole KZN legislature up in arms. Way back in the time of the Henries, English was only spoken by the low and working class English and French was the fashionable language at court. Professor Higgins in Pygmalion famously could tell from your accent which street you lived in and worse still, which class one belonged to. It was and is a language that belongs to the street where you live, wherever that may be
I personally love to hear the various diverse accents and lilts to the English language and accept whole fact that, as an undisputed imperial world language, we have to grin and bear it when ye olde English is pidginised.
Rubbish.
English as spoken by first-language, mother-tongue English speakers — be they English, American, South African, Australian, Scottish, New Zealanders or Irish is NOT obliged to accept as equals the ugly mangling and mutilation inflicted on it by its second-language speakers.
Then therefore, Rod’s argument was just like a fish laughing at the snake for not having legs…
Ismail – thanks for the compliment (I mean that, no sarcasm) by responding to my off-the-cuff comment. I agree with everything you have to say. However, my comment on Sarah Britten’s blog was a quick, passing comment and it can be construed to mean many things.
I love playing with language, and love what happens to English when it gets (distorted? poeticised? improved?) when it becomes Chinglish in China. For example, my blog on “The ovary and digestive gland of the crab nudges the cabbage” shows my complete delight with what happens to English here in China. I love the way Philippians in Shanghai speak English.
What is standard English? Obviously depends on where you live and your particular set of attitudes and beliefs. (Ouch, the last phrase was a sentence fragment, and hey, Microsoft did not put that green thingummy underneath it. However, Microsoft did put a red thingummy under thingummy which is an insult to that marvelous chimera. Thingummies should not be crucified this way and this parenthetical bit of waffle is getting too long.)
Ismail, you are fluent in English, surely. I respect your undoubted prowess in the language. Are you saying that you don’t feel you have the “emotive” feel for the English language, but can only understand it discursively? What do you mean when you say you are not fluent?
You put this whitey in sy plek. I will think more carefully before writing comments.
I love your nickname for me, Macca (pity Microsoft punishes it with a red thingummy). I hope it sticks. I like. Rhymes with kaka (oh s-t, I can hear the limerick writers scrabbling for their pens now).
- Michael Frances, who are you speaking to in your comment? Ismail? Me? Confused.
Rod – Sorry for any confusion or from your perspective perhaps Confucian. My comment was just a general one about language and its uses. I love to see people play with language creatively and hate to see people dismiss ideas from people due to second-third-or more language problems or barriers. I do hate the laziness of text type of writing (c u l8r, wtf etc) and wish people would check what they write. The ‘nogal’ remark is to a certain person and his kangaroos who plagues blogs ranting about ‘nogals’ as if anyone knows what they are.
What is language all about??? Suggest communication and almost nothing else, certainly should not be used to elevate one above ones peers.
Brent
Michael Francis
“The ‘nogal’ remark is to a certain person and his kangaroos who plagues blogs ranting about ‘nogals’ as if anyone knows what they are”
Hmmm
So much for roundabout attack…Lol you need to get ‘those chips’ off your shoulders, may be consider selling some to your pals because you’re (sorry to say this) pooped.
May the One above help you…
My grammar is sub-par. That is why I write and rewrite and rewrite everything. Yes, even the comments I leave on blogs.
My grammar is not awful because I am Afrikaans; it is this bad because I never paid attention to my English teachers.
And now I am trying to catch up on all those lessons.
There are ‘legit’ ways of playing around with language. Know the rules before attempting them, however. Those rules are called … oops, I was almost guilty of employing the passive. We call these rules grammar.
Misspellings I can stomach; bad grammar is a bit more difficult. Deliberate misspellings, however, anger me immensely; what is the point of communication if the meaning is lost to the readers?
And yes, Bantu education was (is still?) bad. But having access to the internet means having a bit of disposable income, having an office job, or being digitally savvy enough to use a cellphone to connect to the interwebs.
So why can’t these people google the spelling of a word? It’s really not that difficult.
“I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”
Yes, this isn’t writing; it’s a Bushism. But isn’t this similar to the type of writing we are subjected to on Thought Leader and many, many other (mostly SA) publications? By English as a Twentieth Language speakers?
Copywriters and journalists should pass strict language competency tests before being employed; degrees mean naught. But then I might be unemployed. I’m just glad my boss doesn’t read this.
ISMAIL
i’m going to write my response to your entry in two different ways. i’ll short with the short version, and then i’ll write the longer version.
you say:
we do not have to apologise for not speaking “proper english”.
my short answer: lolwut?
my long answer:
you’re kidding right? while language is a constantly evolving entity, there is really no excuse for a lot of the dreck that passes for “english” on these and other boards, not to mention in some of the newspapers here. clearly some of our newspaper editors don’t know the meaning of the red and green squiggly lines that pop up on their screens.
one of my friends actually talks about the engilsh language as being the number one thing he appreciates about being american. i responded, in my own blog, how conflicted i am about that.
now, english is my fifth language [i can get by in about ten]. personally, i don’t like to speak it at all, and try not to whenever possible — in fact, my choice of neighborhood of residence here in cape town means i speak far more afrikaans, french, portuguese and kirundi/kinyarwanda than english when interacting with my neighbors. and i like it that way.
however, my chosen “profession”, if you will, requires that i have a very strong foundation in english, so i have it. and use it. [however, i don't use initial caps unless i'm being paid to do so.]
now, given the realities of south african internet usage with regard to cost, availability, and bandwidth constraints, if you have the time to be leaving posts and messages all over the internet, then you probably have a) a job that pays you enough to be able to have decent internet at home or b) a job which doesn’t really look at how much they are spending on bandwidth, so you can muck about all day.
in either case, if you [or your employer] has money like that to piss away, then you probably have a level of education to have a job where, given international realities, your english should “allegedly” be pretty good.
allegedly.
however, in constantly reading a lot of the responses on here to various blog items, it’s clear that not only have people not learned to write english properly, they really do not care that they haven’t. and this is really bad.
i’m not necessarily talking about speaking — i have the same people complaining about both my spanish [you sound like someone from a batey] and my kirundi [did you learn it in a refugee camp?] that many people have with regard to the english of other posters.
now, i’m illiterate in kirundi [because i did, in fact, learn it in a refugee camp] but my written spanish is some serious top-notch, polished stuff. my spoken accent, however, sounds like “a dominican that grew up in puerto rico” which does have some merit. my mother grew up in puerto rico, i spent part of my childhood there, and in my teen years i spent enough time around dominicans for their accent to rub off on me. both the puerto rican and dominican accents are seen, in the spanish world, as being extremely inferior. however, i don’t write in dialect; i write in standard, and used to be teased by my friends for writing like a gallego, until they saw their parents started asking me to write letters for them. i’ve done that in english, french, spanish and portuguese. [if you've seen "central do brasil", english title "central station", that's the type of thing i'm talking about. writing letters for the illiterate; part of how i actually supported myself in rio was by doing exactly that.]
i’m not saying all of this as to try to gloat; i’m saying that because if you are going to effectively communicate with your audience, using decent grammar is often the best way to go — decent grammar is often sorely lacking in these parts.
it’s not about how your accent sounds either — our traps writes extremely well, but whenever i see him on television, i dive for the remote control so i can hit the mute button or change the channel. [i'm just being honest, guy; don't feel bad -- i do that for aziz pahad, gershawn coetzee, and shahan ramkissoon as well.]
so it’s not about accent. it’s about the written word. and more people actually need to see their written word and sound it out before they hit “send” or “submit comment” because many people who have been heretofore deemed intelligent often lose that status after clicking on the button.
i used to date someone who just knew that his written english was horrible. [he was from wolverhampton, and he was a yam-yam to the core -- a yardie yam-yam, like lenny henry.] this guy would ask me to help him with his written communication with his children’s teachers so the teachers wouldn’t think he was less intelligent than he actually was. given that he owned three businesses, he had enough active brain cells to know that perception is important: if he came across as a slobbering idiot, the teachers would downgrade their expectations for his children and that was exactly what he did not want.
now i’m not saying that there should be an english equivalent to l’académie française or la real academía española — although it could be argued that noah webster tried to do exactly that when he yanked out most of the anglicisms from american english in the creation of the american english dictionary; but there is a level of english which people must reach and maintain for effective initial international communication. i say initial due to something i learned in my high school business french class:
an american, a frenchman, and a japanese man were all asked: “what is the international language of business?”
the american said: “english”
the frenchman said: “french”
the japanese man said: “the language of the client”
the last point: really important. during the time i worked for lawyers in washington, one of my attorneys gained entree to some very exclusive circles with clients because, although the clients spoke excellent english, my attorney spoke fluent russian. [this attorney knew i could sound out words in written russian but didn't know what they meant, so he would have me read him his emails over the phone if he didn't have internet access on site.]
despite all of my protests, i went to an english-language high school and university. [if i had it to do over again, i wouldn't have.] i was angry and upset that various members of my family couldn’t understand all of the awards and certificates i received for my academic performance, yet they were happy that i got them.
i used to be really angry about how assimilationist i thought my family was until i figured it out: proper english, proper french, and proper spanish were for separating the white man from his money; all the other languages were for being among your friends and family.
that is the meaning behind “the language of the client”. after i figured that out, i worked in a duality of language usage that has suited me quite well ever since. but it’s created other problems, because i don’t buy into the victimization garbage that a lot of people use these days — when i see people who are allegedly educated with a couple of university degrees from english-language institutions complaining about their continual oppression while using horrific english, i just tell them to STFU.
ismail, you might be right about the hegemony, but instead of complaining about it, how about making it work for you? i guess it’s easier to be a professional victim than to actually sack up and do something about it.
but, whatever.
wow. that was long.
Ismael,
Those who believe in “conspiracy theories” about early human development say the ancient languages – Sanskrit, Latin, Sumerian,… – started out being PERFECT and fully developed. Such languages cannot evolve – any change waters them down, and reduces their power. Also, when languages are watered down, even grammatically correct sentences can be vague or ambiguous, whereas grammatically correct sentences in ancient languages were very rarely or never ambiguous. While Sanskrit is only spoken by some Hindu priests nowadays, it is perfectly adequate for explaining concepts in modern mathematics, physics, medicine as well as for expressing ideas in literature, poetry etc.
English developed differently from the above 3 languages, it has adopted words and expressions from many languages, over many centuries. So maybe English had to evolve. W. Shakespeare added considerably to the English language in terms of expressions, and to the beauty of this language. “Last but not least” is but one of many that we are indebted to Shakespeare for. Perhaps English language development reached its peak roughly during the time of Charles Dickens, i.e. in the 19th Century.
From the mid 19th Century, educational systems, particularly in the USA and UK, but later spreading to many other countries, were NOT designed to encourage creativity, intellectual thought etc. – they were designed to produce docile factory workers and materialistic consumers. The developed world has since moved into the post industrial age, and then into the Information Age.
Educational methods also changed, for the worse – they educate less than ever! An example – was around for decades, but has become more widespread – is the use of multiple choice questions/answers in examinations.
In addition to numerous educational gimmicks like OBE, a deliberate strategy used by those who determine the future (and who control the media) is to water down the English language.
For example, Americans no longer (on TV shows, TV adverts at any rate) use the word “beaten”, they use “beat”. As in product XYZ “cannot be beat”. What appalling bastardization of a once powerful and expressive language!
Its all part of this grand plan to “dumb-down” society,to use the term coined by Ken E Smith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbing_down
When you have “dumbed” down a large proportion of a population, they will not object to invasions of other countries (such as Afghanistan or Iraq) or war talk about attacking Iran……
“Development” of the English language? Think again!
Hi Ismail. Bro no wories. U think the kids care 1 way or anudder? The next gen doesn even read blogs on the net. Its jes not wher its @ 4 them. Try mxit instead. If u havnt noticed, language has alredy evolved specially 4 them! Wther we wanted it 2 or no. MayB not as extreme as ths sms msg 2 u but close enuf! Wht can we do? Adapt or die!
Lisa
The very fact that the German and French languages are regulated by law has made them less adaptable than English.
A hundred years ago the language experts were certain that American and Australian and Canadian would develop into seperate languages – they did not, probably because of mass communication (books, radio, TV).
And in fact even “Normal” British English is no longer Oxford/Queen’s English – listen to the British TV shows! Closer to the old Cockney!
Hi, Geri.
I’m confused. Whom are you referring to? Do you read blogs? If not, you might be surprised to learn that most bloggers, especially in South Africa, are young people.
Or perhaps you are talking about black, Indian and coloured youngsters in South Africa who do not know they can use their cellphone to access the internet. Are you?
I think it is sad that these youngsters whom you talk about do not read blogs; they’re missing out on so much information. Also, Social Media is the way to go. It’s easier to voice opinions and complain to companies.
Steve – so you teach English in Spain? Please send me your details, maybe via the editors. We are looking at teaching in Spain maybe sometime.
Rod, send me your email address, please…
mine is
ilagardien at yahoo dot com
cheers
Must say I LMAO at the pedants. Its about conveying ideas, period. Give me a good idea in Inglis any day over a whinge in the Queen’s (awful) English. Right on, Ismail and the new Rod!
Yesterday SAFM had a phone-in on just this topic. EVERY SINGLE ONE of the pedantic whingers had something one could criticise about THEIR English as they criticised English as she is sprouted on the radio (“The news reader said joperdise instead of jepperdize” whinged one pathetic excuse for humanity, proving she had known what he meant but couldn’t help nyah nyah’ing him about it.
Pathetic.
Thanks Pete. LMAO?