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
Results 1-3 of 44
Page 55
... Spanish or Russian or Turkish starts to become as irrelevant an issue as whether teal is green or blue . And yet ... Spanish is in the real world . Spanish , of course , arose in Spain , but is now spoken by more people in its former ...
... Spanish or Russian or Turkish starts to become as irrelevant an issue as whether teal is green or blue . And yet ... Spanish is in the real world . Spanish , of course , arose in Spain , but is now spoken by more people in its former ...
Page 56
... Spanish pattern , but uses the word order of Quechua , and also has the " redundant " his that Quechua uses ( redundance is not " primitive ” —in the French les hommes ... Spanish that are further from Spanish than 56 The Word on the Street.
... Spanish pattern , but uses the word order of Quechua , and also has the " redundant " his that Quechua uses ( redundance is not " primitive ” —in the French les hommes ... Spanish that are further from Spanish than 56 The Word on the Street.
Page 57
John Mcwhorter. creoles based on Spanish that are further from Spanish than Papia- mentu . For example , in the early 1600s , slaves in Colombia escaped into the interior and developed a community called El Palenque de San Basilio ...
John Mcwhorter. creoles based on Spanish that are further from Spanish than Papia- mentu . For example , in the early 1600s , slaves in Colombia escaped into the interior and developed a community called El Palenque de San Basilio ...
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