1. What do you mean conclude? For whom? I mean conclude. For me. I am the authority on all. I am just personally a

little sick of this Ebonics thing, as we have obviously irreconcilable positions. I tried to take a concilliatory position with which all would agree. It has little to do with cryptography and is a stretch even for this generally weird mailing list.

2. Rather than hypothesize a "standard" language, the language evolves and generates the standard. Just relax and enjoy it. No. I'm right and you're wrong. Face it. :-)

3. Black people are/are not stupider than what? Mark, you should go live in the deep South for awhile, and become part of it, and watch the outsiders come in and tell your friends and neighbors on the TV, on radio, and in in-person seminars that they speak "wrongly" and should lose their Southern "accents", as though they were something to be ashamed of.

Mark, you need to learn simple logic. Instead of saying "...are often difficult to understand", you should say "...are often difficult for *me* to understand". I personally have no problem understanding Southern accents. Other people have stated that they have problems understanding Ebonics, so I was just playing devil's advocate and taking another, conflicting position. I sense that one of the reasons why *some* people are so disgusted with Ebonics is that only black people speak it. I am just responding to those racist sentiments (Ahem. Timothy May) and trying to present a white example of muddled speech. Also, the entire issue of clarity of speech is relative and *will* be different for each person, another thing many people are ignoring.

You see, Mark, I could understand you in speech I am sure, and I can also understand the Southern speech by-and-large, but it's you who seems to have the limitations. Now you want to force people who don't talk like you to talk like you, otherwise you won't deal with them.

What a petty, narrow-minded person you must be, and how sad. Again, I was being devil's advocate and imitating other people's distaste with Ebonics. Your rather biting comments describe their narrow mindedness.