“Our speech is our standard, and it sends signals!”
Dear Leader,
The Granddaughter and I sat at our favorite café for Saturday breakfast. She orders the pancake, as always: “can I have pancakes, please?”
Her manners are impeccable, even if her grammar is ‘not so much’.
The waitress has her back to me, so I discreetly, and silently, mouth “may I” – and she corrects herself: “May I have the pancakes, please.” This is an ongoing struggle, but to be fair, she certainly is not my toughest opponent, but as always, she challenges me afterwards, asking: “it is really necessary, Granddad?”
Well, despite running the risk of being indicted as the grammar-police, labeled as being pedantic, or just accused of being down-right mean, I believe it is.
How we speak is important.
How we speak makes a massive difference to how we are treated.
Now, admittedly, we are living in SE London, so it is not the most prestigious area for elocution, but nonetheless, communication counts! Words have power, and how we use them establishes how we will be judged and often treated. The difference is noticed!
This has nothing to do with race, this is societal. Sadly, we are just as prone to show prejudice toward how people sound and communicate as we are toward how they look or live.
Note to Self!
Our speech is our standard, and it sends signals!
It tells others much of what is important to us and our attitude toward life. On many occasions I have heard people dramatically change the way they treat someone just because of the way that person spoke.
Obviously it requires a lot more attention and work than getting auxiliary verbs correct, but it is a start, and all great achievements start with small steps.
It is not pedantic, it is precision! Not about policing, but having pride. People judge us. If we speak with pride and precision, correctly and with clarity, we can give them one less thing for which they can judge us poorly.
Living life, Learning Lessons!
Live | Learn | Lead
