Thursday, April 21, 2005

Yo! Whassup?

Dear ESL teachers in Taiwan:

I had a bad moment in class today, and it was caused by you. (No, don't look behind you. I'm looking at YOU.)

I had a Taiwanese exchange student turn up in one of my classes today. I was teaching my students how to greet each other in an informal situation. I had given them lots of ways to do it: Hi! How's it going? How are you doing? How've you been? and so on. I told them to practice in pairs.

My Taiwanese exchange student turned to his partner and said:

"Yo! Wassup?"

To which his partner responded, naturally:

"Eh?"

My students are confused enough, thank you very much. Also, I don't know how to respond when one of the Americans around here greets me with "Yo! Whassup?" I am not a "Yo! Whassup?" kind of person. My students are not "Yo! Whassup?" kinds of people, either. It makes them sound like idiots.

I am most likely to tell anybody who says "Yo! Whassup?" to me to sod off and stop being so bloody American, and I can't teach my students that now, can I? So what am I supposed to do with a student who turns up in my class Yo! Whassuping and that's practically all the English he knows?

Please stop it.


Yours sincerely,
Badaunt

13 comments:

Paula said...

Dude. I hear you.

Colin said...

It is solely those phrases and phrases like that that make me ashamed to be a part of the younger generation.

Megan said...

You might also want to address this letter to American ESL teachers. LMAO. Just the other day I had my students saying "Whassup!" to each other, just because it was hilarious to see the older students saying that to one another. I'm so evil. :)

Anonymous said...

Word.
--
recycledcognition.com

thisismine2 said...

I agree, a lot of the current lingo of my generation is pretty lame. But I use "dude" and various other words and phrases that get bad mouthed by the 'older' generation. (at this point i realize I am borderline 'older generation').

Before you complain too much about it, I bet all your parents hated the lingo of your generation, just like they hated those four hippies from england (for example). It is the same for everyone. Even I, only five years out of high school, can't stand the stuff my little brothers (grades 9 and 11) say and listen to. I can't believe they listen to (c)Rap. I thought I taught them better than that.

Anonymous said...

ROTFL! ROTFL! Poor GoodAunt, my heart goes out to you! My first job teaching right out of grad. school in 1980 found me at a private high school, where the guys' main vocabulary consisted of "dude." (I was familiar with a dude only as a ranch hand, so at first, I thought they were referring to each other's summer job experience, or s.th.)

But truly, "Yo! Wassup?" encapsulates the imbecility of modern American "culture," believe me. We export the worst trash, in movies/TV shows, in music (if [c]rap can even qualify as music), in literature, in painting, & in religion. Just the other day, I was puzzling over the irony that the most technologically developed country on the planet is culturally
one vast domain of Musselmen. Go figure!

Gordon said...

Wow, like, that so totally rocks, you know? like, they were all "wassup homeboy" and you were all, like...

OK I'll stop.

Couple of points to E.P. though: SOME rap is good. It's not all based on gangsters, drugs, 'ho's and bling. There are many American rappers who write about poverty, race relations (in a positive way) and much more. Don't diss it cos you don't get it! (or whatever the kids say).

Ohh and I was going to pull you up on the "exporting religion" bit until I remember about that lot in Utah ;-)

Ms Mac said...

Good for you!

Andy N. said...

.. well, at least the victim of the 'wassup' answered in Canadian, eh?


(for the uninitiated, some Canadians, particularly in the more rural areas of the Province of Ontario, often finish their sentences with the interlocution "eh?", pronounced with a long "A" sound, as in 'bay'. Due to the cultural contamination from south of the border, it is not too infrequent to now hear: "hey, whassup. eh?".)

thisismine2 said...

Haha, I will confess, I am from Onatario (not rural) but i use "eh" quite abit. It is usually used as a question of understanding, eh? (It loosely means do you understand what I am saying?) The response is usually a "yeah", or a very subtle nodding of the head, not even a nod, just a slight up and down shake.

That is one context of eh. It gets used anywhere in a sentence, and as often as you want.

Or, if you want to be a little more colOURful, "F**kin-eh" is the newest canadianized phrase.

Megan said...

I think the "whassup eh?" comment was about the funniest thing I've read in ages. Man, I love Canadians.

I refuse to give up saying "dude," however. It is so engrained in my psyche that it's become a tradition to say and would feel sacreligious to give it up. Then again, I'm from California.

melinama said...

You need to see Cheech Marin's movie, "Born in East L.A.", in which the US-born hero is mistakenly deported to Mexico and spends some of his time in exile teaching barrio English to a bunch of Chinese Mexican dudes, with the result that they pass under the radar of the police when they sneak across the border. We rolled.

Kim said...

*ahem* I believe the appropriate response is "Yo, my nigga". True dat.