Government

Kamala Harris, Code-Switching, And Being Alive

Do we really change words or dialects depending on the situation, or is this some kind of pandering?

By  
on
TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-VOTE-BIDEN-HARRIS

(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Last month, Kamala Harris gave a speech in Atlanta using a slightly different dialect than she usually does. Republicans accused Harris of using a fake southern accent and thus pandering to her audience.

John McWhorter then wrote a column at The New York Times about what Harris had done: “Code-switching,” or alternating between dialects depending on the circumstances. McWhorter explained that Harris had been speaking in Black English in Atlanta, which let Harris connect more easily with her audience, and Republicans confused that dialect with a southern accent.

Last week, Jesse Watters (of Fox News) continued to criticize Harris for changing dialects when she speaks before different audiences. Watters compiled a video of the different dialects that Harris has used on different occasions, again accusing her of pandering. Democrats in turn accused Watters of criticizing Black culture and using racist dog whistles.

My, my. Is McWhorter right? Do we really change words or dialects depending on the situation, or is this some kind of pandering?

To think about this, I naturally focused on the specimen I know best: myself.

I’m a white, English-speaking guy from New Jersey. When people ask where I grew up, I code-switch, depending on the situation. In a highbrow situation, I grew up in Princeton; in a lowbrow situation, I’m from Trenton.

Sponsored

But there’s more!

In New Jersey, big roads that cross large sections of the state are called “turnpikes.” When I moved to Los Angeles, I started calling the same roads “freeways.” In New Jersey, the contraption that kids slide down at a playground is called a “sliding board.” I thought this terminology was completely normal until I moved away. Now, like virtually all Americans, I call the contraption a “slide.” In New Jersey, I would occasionally drink a “soda.” In Chicago, where I live now, I can’t bear to call that drink a “pop,” but I’ve settled on “soft drink” to better communicate with the locals.

I lived in London for six years. When people asked about my living arrangement, I’d tell them that “I have an apartment in Chicago and a flat in London.”  Remarkable: “Flats” and “apartments” are exactly the same thing, but my mind code-switched in midsentence to account for my instantaneous mental journey across the Atlantic. At restaurants in London, once I got passed my confusion, I would order aubergine or courgette as vegetables, even though I would have ordered eggplant or zucchini in the United States. When I told my son, Jeremy, that we couldn’t take my father-in-law to a nearby London Underground station — “because there’s no lift to the tube at Oxford Circus” — Jeremy accused me of having gone “all British” on him: “You couldn’t say there was no elevator down to the subway?”

See? You can be criticized for forgetting to code-switch.

There are situations in which I curse — because those words best convey my meaning. And there are situations in which I do not curse — because cursing would be wrong. I’m thinking, for example, about cursing in a house of worship or when I’m in the presence of my 2- and 4-year-old granddaughters.

Sponsored

I do this even in written work: When I write a legal brief, I’m very staid and formal. That’s the nature of legal briefs. When I occasionally wrote law review articles in my youth, it was the same deal: Informal writing didn’t fit the situation and, in any event, would never have survived the editor’s pen. I wrote formally.

Now, when I write for The Daily Beast, I can let down my hair a little. That’s an outfit that likes humor and interesting turns of phrase. I write to my audience.

Things that sound completely ordinary to an editor (or reader) at The Daily Beast just ain’t gonna fly in a legal brief or an article at The New York Times. That’s the nature of things.

And, of course, the phrase “ain’t gonna fly” ain’t gonna fly even at The Daily Beast. But we’re not at The Daily Beast: We’re at Above the Law, and damn near anything flies here.

So don’t blame Kamala Harris for code-switching.

We all code-switch in endless situations.

Our words, spoken or written, conform to the setting. Things that would communicate in one forum are forbidden in another.

IMHO.

LOL.

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].

Topics

, , , ,