BrookSpeak

It is hard to figure out whether our generation is progressive or extremely dim-witted. We have altered the English language so much to the point that it is almost unrecognizable to those outside of our age group.

The sentence is a simple compilation of verbs, noun, adjectives etc. that most students on this campus do not seem to understand. Yes, a sentence does require a verb. More of an issue than the constant lack of verb in Pebblebrookian English is the even more constant misplacement of the verb.

“Who that is?� A favorite saying among Pebblebrookians, still, it isn’t clear if it is a person or thing being referred to. On the one hand, “who� and “is� point to the subject being a person, however with “that� in the middle, the person could easily be eliminated by the thing. After a considerable amount of time at Pebblebrook, it’s easy to finally understand that “who that is?� is the equivalent of “who is that?� at least on this campus. Confusing.

Something obviously isn’t right here, where is this terrible grammar coming from? Signs point to the environment outside of school. Although it’s okay to use terrible grammar and to emphasize your ‘progression’ (a.k.a. lack of vocabulary) in social settings, once in school, the incoherency should probably be turned off.

There are places for “who that is?� and places for “who is that�, at Pebblebrook, which was originally an English speaking school, English should be used. Sure it could be argued that Pebblebrook belongs to the Pebblebrookians and their chosen tongue, however, the books supplied as well as the instructors who teach from those books are mostly if not all English.

The plea to bring back English to the campus isn’t simply because of the annoyance caused by random Pebblebrookian fragments shouted up and down hallways; it is also and mostly because school is for learning. As students we come here to learn how to not only solve mathematical problems and memorize history dates; we also come to learn how to build vocabularies and fix grammatical handicaps so that we could become upstanding members of society.

To some, this newfound knowledge will change poor speaking habits and to others it will spark a rebellious increase of grammatically deficient speech. In either case, the one thing to remember is that “who that is?� is all fine and dandy now but no matter how progressive Pebblebrookian may sound on our campus, in the ‘real’ world it’s a sign of senselessness and is only rewarded with a job offer from Ronald McDonald and company.