[3430] in Humor
Bushonics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew Bennett)
Mon Apr 2 11:37:55 2001
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Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 11:34:16 -0400
From: Andrew Bennett <abennett@irobot.com>
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> > Bushonics speakers strike back
> > We're mad as hell and we won't be misunderestimated anymore!
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > By Tom McNichol
> >
> > March 19, 2001 | The day Lisa Shaw's son Tyler came home from school
> > with tears streaming down his cheeks, the 34-year-old Crawford,
> > Texas, homemaker, knew things had gone too far.
> >
> > "All of Tyler's varying and sundry friends was making fun of the way
> > he talked," Shaw says. "I am not a revengeful person, but I couldn't
> > let this behaviorism slip into acceptability. This is not the way
> > America is about."
> >
> > Shaw and her son are two of a surprising number of Americans who
> > speak a form of nonstandard English that linguists have dubbed
> > "Bushonics," in honor of the dialect's most famous speaker, President
> > George W. Bush. The most striking features of Bushonics -- tangled
> > syntax, mispronunciations, run-on sentences, misplaced modifiers and
> > a wanton disregard for subject-verb agreement -- are generally
> > considered to be "bad" or "ungrammatical" by linguists and society at
> > large.
> >
> > But that attitude may be changing. Bushonics speakers, emboldened by
> > the Bush presidency, are beginning to make their voices heard. Lisa
> > Shaw has formed a support group for local speakers of the dialect and
> > is demanding that her son's school offer "a full-blown up apologism."
> > And a growing number of linguists argue that Bushonics isn't a
> > collection of language "mistakes" but rather a well-formed linguistic
> > system, with its own lexical, phonological and syntactic patterns.
> >
> > "These people are greatly misunderestimated," says University of
> > Texas linguistics professor James Bundy, himself a Bushonics speaker.
> > "They're not lacking in intelligence facilities by any stretch of the
> > mind. They just have a differing way of speechifying."
> >
> > It's difficult to say just how many Bushonics speakers there are in
> > America, although professor Bundy claims "their numbers are
> > legionary." Many who speak the dialect are ashamed to utter it in
> > public and will only open up to a group of fellow speakers. One known
> > hotbed of Bushonics is Crawford, the tiny central Texas town near the
> > president's 1,600-acre ranch. Other centers are said to include
> > Austin and Midland, Texas, New Haven, Conn., and Kennebunkport, Maine.
> >
> > Bushonics is widely spoken in corporate boardrooms, and has long been
> > considered a kind of secret language among members of the fraternity
> > Delta Kappa Epsilon. Bushonics speakers have ascended to top jobs at
> > places like the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health
> > and Human Services. By far the greatest concentration of Bushonics
> > speakers is found in the U.S. military. Former Secretary of State
> > Alexander Haig is only the most well known Bushonics speaker to serve
> > with distinction in America's armed forces. Among the military's top
> > brass, the dialect is considered to be the unofficial language of the
> > Pentagon.
> >
> > Former President George H.W. Bush spoke a somewhat diluted form of
> > the dialect that bears his family's name, which may have influenced
> > his choice for vice president, Dan Quayle, who spoke an Indiana
> > strain of Bushonics.
> >
> > The impressive list of people who speak the dialect is a frequent
> > topic at Lisa Shaw's weekly gathering of Bushonics speakers. That so
> > many members of their linguistic community have risen to positions of
> > power comes as a comfort to the group, and a source of inspiration.
> >
> > "We feel a good deal less aloneness, my guess is you would want to
> > call it," Shaw says. "It just goes to show the living proof that
> > expectations rise above that which is expected."
> >
> > Some linguists still contend, however, that the term "Bushonics" is
> > being used as a crutch to excuse poor grammar and sloppy logic.
> >
> > "I'm sorry, but these people simply don't know how to talk properly,"
> > says Thomas Gayle, a speech professor at Stanford University.
> > Professor Gayle was raised by Bushonic parents, and says he
> > occasionally catches himself lapsing into the dialect.
> >
> > "When it happens, it can be very misconcerting," Gayle says. "I
> > understand Bushonics. I was one. But under full analyzation, it's
> > really just an excuse to stay stupider."
> >
> > It's talk like that that angers many Bushonics speakers, who say
> > they're routinely the victims of prejudice.
> >
> > "The attacks on Bushonics demonstrate a lack of compassion and amount
> > to little more than hate speech," says a prominent Bushonics leader
> > who spoke on the condition that his quote be "cleaned up."
> >
> > Increasingly, members of the Bushonics community are fighting back.
> > Lisa Shaw's Crawford-based group is pressing the local school board
> > to institute bilingual classes, and to eliminate the study of English
> > grammar altogether. "It's an orientation of being fairness-based,"
> > Shaw says. A Bushonics group in New England has embarked on an
> > ambitious project to translate key historical documents into the
> > dialect, beginning with the Bill of Rights. (For instance, the Second
> > Amendment rendered into Bushonics reads: "Guns. They're American, for
> > the regulated militia and the people to bear. Can't take them away
> > for infringement purposes. Not never.")
> >
> > Bushonics activists say they'll keep fighting as long as there are
> > still children who come home from school crying because their
> > classmates can't understand a word they're saying. Lisa Shaw hopes
> > that every American will heed the words of the nation's No. 1
> > Bushonics speaker, and vow to be a uniter, not a divider.
> >
> > "We shouldn't be cutting down the pie smaller," Shaw says with quiet
> > dignity. "We ought to make the pie higher."
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > About the writer
> > Tom McNichol is a San Francisco writer whose work has appeared in the
> > New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Spy, Punch and other
> > publications. His radio commentaries have aired on National Public
> > Radio's "All Things Considered."
