Item 121 – Slam Poem Eschewing Prescriptivist Language

Not that we have a strong opinion on the topic, but to be a casual English language grammar prescriptivist is to be complicit and prideful in systems that, by nature, devalue cultural and colloquial flexibility in the use of language (lookin’ at you, AAVE) by maintaining that only those selective demographics who have dominated the academy, or been deemed valuable by the academy, have the license to create language to suit their communicative needs — Big Academia only affords the grace of words to the voices of a specific demographic (generally, in the West, the well-educated, affluent and predominantly white members of society). Perform a mic-dropping slam poem highlighting the value of eschewing prescriptivism and embracing dynamic, evolving forms and dialects of grammar. You may not USE any language variance that’s currently in use (like AAVE) to do this item as it may be appropriative or racially or technically insensitive, depending on the speaker… instead, you must perform it in academic English. Hypocritical? Yup.

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