Quote Originally Posted by Crankin View Post
However, things like "I seen" and "he don't" or ... are just bad grammar/spelling!
Not necessarily...

I've been taking a class that talks about African American English and often what we hear as poor grammar is actually a linguistic dialectic and has real meaning.

When someone says, "He been bugging me." It's not poor grammar; it means the person has been bugging them repeatedly. "I seen" means the person has seen it often. "He don't never..." the repeated negative is for emphasis.

It's been really interesting. AND, it's helped me understand my students a little bit better. The trick is getting the kids to understand when they need to use standard English.

Veronica