So... I read this lil blurb:
AUGUST 23--The Department of Justice is seeking to hire linguists fluent in Ebonics to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of subjects of narcotics investigations, according to federal records.I immediately thought of this:
A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a “DEA Sensitive” security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of “telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media.”
The DEA’s need for full-time linguists specializing in Ebonics is detailed in bid documents related to the agency’s mid-May issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) covering the provision of as many as 2100 linguists for the drug agency’s various field offices. Answers to the proposal were due from contractors on July 29.
Heh. "I speak jive." That's egg-zactly who DOJ is looking for, innit?
Those Airplane movies were hilarious. Ebonics - not quite so funny.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on both counts, Lou.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was the Beaver's Mom!
ReplyDeleteYeah, June Cleaver was a multi-talented gal.
ReplyDeleteBuck, being from Shreveport, and working many years in the retail business I am fluent in Ebonics. Fluent, I tell ya'.
But, I'm so far out of the loop that the slang terms would ex me from doing this job well. However, a couple of my coworkers would be a perfect fit for this job. They are young people that can turn it off and on in an instant...it's amazing to watch.
Totally ghetto one second, and then as white/square/professional as anybody the next.
I'm gonna tell them about this job opportunity today.
Heh.
ReplyDeleteI sent a link to my kids yesterday to a similar post at Chicks on the Right and suggested they apply for the job -- they are, after all, graduates of the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.
I'll leave the New Orleans connection just floating around out there -- apply it as you wish.
"Airplane" is definitely one of my favorite movies. I do wish that June Cleaver had been wearing her pearls, though!
Moogie, Glenn, and Andy: re: June Cleaver... Back when Airplane! first came out I remarked on the fact that there wasn't one single black kid (or blacks of ANY sort, if memory serves) to be seen on "Leave It to Beaver," so how'd she DO that?
ReplyDeleteAndy: I've known people that can switch back and forth like your co-workers, too. That's an amazing skill. Srsly.
Moogie: I saw a couple of other posts on the subject yesterday, too. And one posted the same clip I did...
re: Little Rock public schools. I went to public school in Hotlanta for a brief while, so you'd think I could speak jive, no? No. That was before Ebonics, when everyone was expected to speak English. That was also slightly before the Cleavers hit prime-time, too. Yeah: I'm OLD.
Um, no, you couldn't. If you were in school in ATL before the Cleavers hit primetime, you were in a segregated school. Total immersion is a necessity in mastering the nuances of Ebonics. My girls are stars.
ReplyDelete