Where's YOUR head, Sir!

I must tell a story, and I promise that it pertains to literacy. It was Friday night and for some reason the band at the bar decided that this was a good night to continue playing past midnight, which meant that all of the people who went to the JayZ concert and all of the UKentucky people who went out drinking decided to come back to the hotel just before we had a chance to do last call. There are very few things that make me fuming angry. Coming to my bar as I am moping and expecting a drink is one of them. This massive flood of people come storming into the joint, demanding a drink. I was tired, cranky, my feet hurt, and honestly I could not justify staying open for an extra ten dollars. However, the other bartender thought differently and decided to starting handing out the drinks like they were free. So I was stuck serving for a whole hour on top of the previous hour I endured with the band. Mind you, we are supposed to be closed by 11:00pm. "Woopsie," is what the band told me when I explained why I was giving them dirty looks.

Finally, the crowd eased so I thought if I started mopping then the Jayz people and the Kentucky people would get the hint and leave. No one wants nasty mop water splashing on them. Unfortunately, both groups were too drunk to care, causing me to curse them silently while I tried to mop around them as best as I could. A Kentucky man walked up to me and asked me, "where is your head?" I gave him the "what the hell?" look, which proceeded to translate back to him, "keep repeating until I figure it out."

"Your head, your head, your head lady. Where's your head." Finally, with clenched fists and a clenched mouth and said, "Sir! Repeating the word 'head' back to me a hundred times is clearly NOT going to make understand. Please use another synonym."

"Your John, Lady. Where is your bathroom." For F-ing reals! You really could not say that in the first place?! No, instead you had to be all unique on me in hopes that I figure out your country ways. Shaking in anger I pointed him to the restroom. The JayZ people were laughing and telling each other about the strange interaction between me and the man, using another language entirely because I didn't understand a word they said. They kept laughing and pointing, and I kept mentally giving them the finger. (Sorry for the crudeness, but at 2 in the morning, after a ten hour shift my lady-like charm vanishes completely).

The next day I was telling my mother the story. In her loving motherly way she said, "Kimberly, you know that if you plan to continue residing in the South you need to learn these types of slang." Wow! I thought I was getting by with knowing what Sears-suckers and meat and threes are, now I have to learn a whole new language? I found it interesting that the way I felt towards the man was the same way I felt towards the help forums when I was trying to figure out a program to create my video essay and all I was coming up against was advanced and unnecessary technical jargon. Can you please just use plain English and I will understand? But, what is plain English anymore? What is plain teaching anymore? All of the southisms are nothing compared to the language of technology as it pertains to everyday life and the classroom. What if a student informs me of a new program I had never heard of, does he have to repeat it a hundred times for me to understand or reach into his memory for an ancient terms that compares hypertext to a type-writer on speed (yes, I have heard this comparison before). Also, where do we as teachers draw the line when it comes to slang? At what exhausting point do I flip the mental finger and internally scream, "learn English!"? I hope that it never gets to that point, but I can guarantee there is going to be a large Old School Thesaurus in hand and my students are going to learn how to use it well.