The Word On The StreetIn The Word on the Street, John McWhorter reveals our American English in all its variety, beauty, and expressiveness. Debunking the myth of a "pure" standard English, he considers the speech patterns and accents of many regions and ethnic groups in the U.S. and demonstrates how language evolves. He takes up the tricky question of gender-neutral pronouns. He dares to ask, "Should we translate Shakespeare?" Focusing on whether how our children speak determines how they learn, he presents the controversial Ebonics debate in light of his research on dialects and creoles. The Word on the Street frees us to truly speak our minds. It is John McWhorter's answer to William Safire, transformed here into everybody's Aunt Lucy, who insists on correcting our grammar and making us feel slightly embarrassed about our everyday use of the language. ("To whom," she will insist, and "don't split your infinitives!") He reminds us that we'd better accept the fact that language is always changing - not only slang, but sound, syntax, and words' meanings - and get on with the business of communicating effectively with one another. |
From inside the book
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Page 39
... first language are bilingual in the second - usually the ruling classes and the educated . In such cases , most speakers are not using the second language alongside the first one on a daily basis- instead , influence from the second ...
... first language are bilingual in the second - usually the ruling classes and the educated . In such cases , most speakers are not using the second language alongside the first one on a daily basis- instead , influence from the second ...
Page 122
... first month of French instruction we learn that single persons are referred to as vous when we are conveying respect ( Comment allez - vous ? ) , and no one in France or elsewhere considers this to " not make sense ” —it happened , and ...
... first month of French instruction we learn that single persons are referred to as vous when we are conveying respect ( Comment allez - vous ? ) , and no one in France or elsewhere considers this to " not make sense ” —it happened , and ...
Page 168
... first clue to this is that , as we have seen , in Black English the tree tall is only one of many types of sentence without to be , while in Ewe , it is the only one . Otherwise , where Black English has no to be , Ewe has one : Black ...
... first clue to this is that , as we have seen , in Black English the tree tall is only one of many types of sentence without to be , while in Ewe , it is the only one . Otherwise , where Black English has no to be , Ewe has one : Black ...
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Lava Lamps and Language | 7 |
The Linguistic Melting Pot | 35 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard English John Mcwhorter Limited preview - 2000 |
Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard English John Mcwhorter Limited preview - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
actually African Americans African Language System African-American children African-American students Afrocentric ain't Ameri American English basic bidialectal Black and standard black children Black English Black English sound black speech black students bridging advocates bridging approach child claim that Black classroom code-switching complex creole creole languages culture dard dialect of English dialect readers divergence English dialects example fact French glish grammar guage Gullah habitual Haitian Haitian Creole home dialect issue Jamaican patois John Rickford language change language mixture Latin less linguistic means Media Lengua nonstandard dialects Old English past patterns person problem pronoun Quechua reading rural Southern seen sense sentence structures separate language Shakespeare Shirley simply slang slaves sound system Spanish speech variety spoken Sranan standard dialect standard English standard German sure Swiss German teachers teaching tense things tion translation verb vowel walk West African languages words writing