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 147
... speech . " A classic example is bees as opposed to simply be , as in That's ... Black English feature , which most middle - class blacks usually only dip into for humorous or emotive effect . Many middle - class ... Black Black English 147.
... speech . " A classic example is bees as opposed to simply be , as in That's ... Black English feature , which most middle - class blacks usually only dip into for humorous or emotive effect . Many middle - class ... Black Black English 147.
Page 193
... black speech , especially given that whites in this period had much less contact with black speech than most do now , courtesy of integration and the media ( for example , the man who said this was a white minister ) . The second ...
... black speech , especially given that whites in this period had much less contact with black speech than most do now , courtesy of integration and the media ( for example , the man who said this was a white minister ) . The second ...
Page 278
... Black English winking at you from every page . John Rickford's article " Social Contact and Linguistic Diffusion ... Speech 62.1 ( 1987 ) . J. L. Dillard's Black English ( cited for Chapter Six ) is a representative argument that Gullah ...
... Black English winking at you from every page . John Rickford's article " Social Contact and Linguistic Diffusion ... Speech 62.1 ( 1987 ) . J. L. Dillard's Black English ( cited for Chapter Six ) is a representative argument that Gullah ...
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