I strongly agree.

First off, English is a *stupid* language, what with all the different rules, tenses, and (especially) exceptions to the rules. I didn’t realize this until I learned a bit of Tagalog (Filipino). Consider this: with Tagalog, you can learn how to correctly pronounce almost every word in the language in about two minutes flat. Not only that, but once you’ve got a bit of practice with proper pronunciation, if you hear a word in Tagalog, you can generally spell it.

Can we do either of those with English? Hmph.

But English is also the most widely-spoken language in the world (and one of the largest (though not the largest) languages). And it’s a pain in the a** to learn.

It’s said that if one speaks English, one speaks a hundred languages…mainly because we included words from all over the planet over centuries of colonization (and all the evils that entailed). For instance, the word “boondocks” — like the cartoon — is where we get the phrase “out in the boonies” from. That word is drawn directly from the boots we Navy sailors wear (“boondockers”), and both stem directly from the Tagalog “bundok” (pronounced “boon-dock”), meaning “mountain”.

What I’m getting to here is that for all its countless faults and the utter perversity of its rules, the English language has been changing year-after-year since before Chaucer penned the words, “Whanne in Aprille…”. Whatever English professors may claim, and the APA/MLA/Chicago Manual of Style be d**ned, history shows us there is NO such thing as “standard English”. Those Black writers who add their own unique cultural flavors are only continuing a tradition that began well over a thousand years ago.