One summer I was at my cousins in Florida. Every time that I get outside I let the moist air into my lungs. I love everything, from getting my baggage to finding the car in the parking lot. I love Florida, it’s what I look foreword to every winter break and summer. I used to just go there and hang out with my cousins. They moved to Florida when I was about 7 and it was extremely saddening. I was there when I was in 7^th grade. I was playing Xbox 360 with my cousin Jake for the first time ever. We sat on his comfortable carpet floor, playing on his 50-inch flat screen TV. We joked around about what was going on in the game of just us. After a while we decided that this was kind of boring with just us. We played an online game where he talked to other people. I couldn’t understand anything that he was saying. He said things like “Owned, Camper, Noob, Wrecked, Beast, and No-scope.” I asked him what that was. He was astonished that I didn’t know what those meant. He explained to me that its what you say when you play a game. He said, “Owned means I beat him really badly. Camper means that they are camped out in one spot. Noob means that he is bad at the game. Wrecked is a synonym for owned. Beast means that I’m really good.” I asked, “What does no scope mean?” He replied, “when you use a sniper rifle, and you don’t scope in but still hit someone.”

I spent several weeks in Florida that summer, all the time playing Xbox with him. I started catching on to this part of language. After I got home I had no-where to use this new language. I pleaded for weeks to get an Xbox, and finally I got one for my birthday. The first thing that I did was talk to my cousins. I was so excited that I forgot all of the trash talking online.  No one in my old school spoke with gamer language, so I didn’t either. I thought that I would get made fun of if I said anything that I use every time I play Xbox. While I wasn’t saying any of this in school, I said them as much as possible when talking with people online. When I came to this school I found other people that play Xbox. I started playing with them, so we used our gamer speak online. Eventually we became better friends and started using our gamer speak at school. This creates a problem because I am at risk of people being like “What is that, nerd!” I have decided that gamer speak is a kind of language that many people in the world use or speak. It is somewhat a type of slang, whereas words replace others and not everyone knows what they mean. I try to switch between these as much as possible, not saying some things to my friends who don’t play games, and saying gamer things when talking with my friends that do play games. Sometimes it gets kind of confused, so I switch the things up.  

In 8^th grade I got a homework assignment in history class. We were asked to use a primary source, but I didn’t know what that was. I went to my friends house after school. My mom came after a while to pick me up. I walked out to our light gray Toyota Camry.  I always loved the seats because of how fuzzy and warm they are. They are also the same color as the car. I asked my mom what a primary source was. My mom was born in Queens New York. She lived there until she was in college, but then moved to Philly. I had never heard her New York accent before this. She repeated “A Primary sauce?” I started laughing uncontrollably, saying “Primary sauce? My primary sauce is tomato, I like it on spaghetti.” She didn’t understand why I found this so funny, because that is how she says source. When we got home I sat on the maroon sofa in the family room. This room is very dark, so the couch looks even darker than it is. The couch has a weird design in it, where unfilled in hexagons cover it. I don’t like sitting on it because of this, and because the small blanket is somewhat itchy. While sitting on the couch I was talking with my mom about it. Eventually she said sofa, but it came out as “Sofer.” This was the second time in one night that I had heard her New York accent, and it surprised me very much. I now make fun of her every time I need to find something, and use a primary source, or any time I sit on the sofa. 

Changing your accent is not something that most people would do unless they really wanted to. Everyone thinks that their accent is normal, so the only reason to change how you talk is to fit in with other people. It takes a long time in order to change your accent or how you speak. Many people try to change their accents in order to fit in, but like gamer talk it slips out sometimes. I think that changing your accent is unnecessary because people shouldn’t judge you on how you sound, or what you talk like. 

A lot of things about dialect are making you fit in or make you stand out in a bad way. Changing your accent or dialect can be a tough process. It takes a lot of time in order to change how you talk. It is not something that can be done over a short period of time, and even if you take a long time it will never be perfect. Everyone who has changed how they talk will eventually go back to how they used to, even if it is only for one word. Changing how you speak is something that many people do in order to fit in places, even though they probably know that it will make them alienated from the people that they knew before.

     Language is how we communicate with one another. It’s how we show respect for those that we communicate with, and how we talk. Our language is made up of our dialect and accent. Our dialect and accents are influenced by our surrounding beings, by how people in the media speak. We all have accents, and talk in some sort of way influenced by our peers or role models.

  It was the first day of school, and I wasn’t nervous or jittery with excitement – I was exhausted due to only getting a few ours of sleep the night before, but even though I only got a few hours of sleep, I was still out to enjoy my day, I wasn’t going to let tiredness be in the way of that.

     I arrived to my Advisory for the first period of the day. The walls were completely stripped of all of the random assortments of math posters and various other posters. The walls were painted with a sky blue. The place would have looked so much better, if there were windows in the room. I sat with faces that I haven’t seen in a while. I sat with Tyler and Alex and the rest of our advisory slowly, yet surely came into the room.  Shortly, a favorite of different dialects, word choice, and people were within the room. You could easily walk from one end of the room and here more sophisticated and quiet conversation, or go to the other side of the room and here a variety of shortened words and loudness. I chose to seclude myself between these two areas, where I could easily indulge in a conversation between either group of speakers. Tyreé came in the room and we greeted each other, “Yo man, I haven’t seen you in forever.” I said to him.  We did the “Shake hand hug thing.” and sat down.  Minutes passed, and Garvey and Sanchez walked in to the room. Immediately how I talked changed. My voice become more upbeat and much more louder and powerful. I walked up to Ms. Garvey and said, “Hey, Ms. Garvey! How was your summer?” She turned around to me to give me her undivided attention, “Hello, Mr. Ferry! My summer was great! I got a lot of training in and traveled. How about you?”

“My summer was pretty good. I got a lot of running in, volunteered, and got around the city abit. It was pretty sweet overall.“  I replied.  “That’s good.” She said with a smile. “Now, go find a place to sit while me and Mr. Sanchez read the advisory memos.”

   I took my seat away from the other students, because I enjoy being by myself in advisory, so I don’t get involved in a conversation. It’s not that I’m anti-social, but it’s because my advisory is very loud, and I’d prefer not to contribute to that noise. My advisory came a bit close, just leaving a few corner desk out of the way. I decided I’d sit at one of  those corner desk.  I sat there and faced where the Promethean board was, which was where Sanchez and Garvey were sitting in front of. I patiently awaited for them to speak, so I could find out my schedule and other information.

   Conversation was still be conducted on both sides of me by my peers. It wasn’t anything interesting, really.  On one side of the room I heard more thought out sentences like, “Haha, you’re absolutely right!” While on the other side I heard sentences like, “Haha, you so right!”  Their were such various uses or words and dialects, it was quite pleasant to hear, well in some cases it was. I could have gone without the slang, or improper English, but hey, who am I to judge one’s language of choice?

   We were just about to get rolling with the Advisory memo, when suddenly, Sanchez was interrupted by one of my peers. “Ahahaha, Sanchez you think you so funni!” It was in such a rude, and raised voice, which I found completely terrible. She used improper English when talking to a teacher, and showed no respect in her tone.

   How one speaks to someone else is a form of respect. Language is a tool of communication, and an indicator of that person’s heritage, intelligences, and overall just how polite they are. The way the student spoke to Sanchez just displayed them as rude, uneducated, and simply disrespectful. When you speak to someone, you either create a world of possible respect and a good relationship, or you create disrespect and a horrid relationship. How you project your voice use your words, and your accent all play a role in how others see you. You could speak with a more Philadelphian accent, and get respect from certain groups of people, or speak more Black English, and get respect from people who use that language.

   The language you use, is how one will be looked at, judged and will create a very large part of the first impression, or just reestablishing who you are with a group of people, like what happened here. She established that she was ignorant of the teacher with her word choice, and tone to the man. While I on the other hand established my respect for Ms. Garvey by my speaking toward her.

     A voice is a very powerful thing. It speaks languages, whether old, ancient, new, or new-age, it help creates a powerful instrument, some are nicer to hear then others, and some prefer some over others, but think of them as instruments. Some prefer it well played and very long notes (words,) if you will, while others prefer much shorter notes (words.) Each voice has a different sound, accent, and dialect, which gives it’s own uniqueness.