That was the call to action in the bestselling book "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves."
In "My Fair Lady" Henry Higgins asks "Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?" and comments that there are some places "where English completely disappears. Why in America they haven't used it in years." The Self-Esteem Movement on this side of the pond has decreed that it is destructive to a child's psyche to tell him he's wrong about anything, so now teachers are expected to learn "Ebonics" to communicate with the students who speak that mangled version of American English.
Business signs are rarely correct--just today, the local Publix Supermarket had a sign in the seafood department advertising "salmon fillet's." Using the possessive "'s" to show a plural is common. My boss asks me, "You done did that?" and her emails have to be seen to be believed. And they often have to be read a few times to figure out what she's trying to say. I had a few of them on a floppy but can't get it to read. Stay tuned for some Ebonics classics. Got any good (bad) examples you've seen? Feel free to comment and add them .
