Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard EnglishThough there is a contingent of linguists who fight the fact, our language is always changing -- not only through slang, but sound, syntax, and words' meanings as well. Debunking the myth of "pure" standard English, tackling controversial positions, and eschewing politically correct arguments, linguist John McWhorter considers speech patterns and regional accents to demonstrate just how the changes do occur. Wielding reason and humor, McWhorter ultimately explains why we must embrace these changes, ultimately revealing our American English in all its variety, expressiveness, and power. |
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... fact is that all of these cases demonstrate the pervasive influences of a number of myths about language, dismissed by all linguists but subscribed to by almost everyone else. I have come to see this as a wakeup call to the field of ...
... fact is that all of these cases demonstrate the pervasive influences of a number of myths about language, dismissed by all linguists but subscribed to by almost everyone else. I have come to see this as a wakeup call to the field of ...
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... fact that we all speak language also naturally reinforces our sense that our personal perceptions of it are correct. We cannot help but be a bit skeptical that a linguist has any grounds for judging casual speech, whatever their ...
... fact that we all speak language also naturally reinforces our sense that our personal perceptions of it are correct. We cannot help but be a bit skeptical that a linguist has any grounds for judging casual speech, whatever their ...
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... the truth about dialects and casual speech is a fundamental fact about human language, with which we must make a deep and lasting peace: Language is always changing. This is not as obvious as The Heart of the Matter ...
... the truth about dialects and casual speech is a fundamental fact about human language, with which we must make a deep and lasting peace: Language is always changing. This is not as obvious as The Heart of the Matter ...
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... fact that slang terms and expressions come and go all the time. What was “the bee's knees” in the 1920s was “swell” in the 1930s, “keen” in the 1950s, “groovy” in the 1960s, “neat” in the 1970s, “wicked” for a while in the 1980s, and ...
... fact that slang terms and expressions come and go all the time. What was “the bee's knees” in the 1920s was “swell” in the 1930s, “keen” in the 1950s, “groovy” in the 1960s, “neat” in the 1970s, “wicked” for a while in the 1980s, and ...
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... fact, they made an unintentional blunder, because what the characters would have spoken is Old Romanian, a different language to modern Romanian ears. What is especially crucial for us, however, is that such change is still going on ...
... fact, they made an unintentional blunder, because what the characters would have spoken is Old Romanian, a different language to modern Romanian ears. What is especially crucial for us, however, is that such change is still going on ...
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Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard English John Mcwhorter Limited preview - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
actually African Americans AfricanAmerican children AfricanAmerican students Afrocentric ain’t American English audience basic bidialectal bilingual Black and standard black children Black English black speech black students bridging advocates bridging approach classroom codeswitching complex Creole languages Creolist culture developed dialect of English dialect readers endings English dialects English speakers example expression fact French genderneutral German grammar Gullah habitual Haitian immersion issue Jamaican patois John Rickford language change language mixture Latin Level linguists means Media Lengua modern nonstandard dialects noun Oakland controversy Old English patterns person pidgin play prepositions problem pronoun Quechua reading Rickford Romance languages rules Saramaccan seen sense sentence structures separate language Shakespeare Shirley simply singular slang slaves sound system Spanish speak speech variety Sranan standard dialect standard English sure Swiss German teachers teaching tense things translation verb vowel walk West African languages words writing