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 67
... pronoun " sounds so out - of - the - blue to us because it is a rule not of English but of Latin , where one would indeed say sum ego " it is I , " with the nominative pronoun ego . In Ancient Rome , it would have been sum me " it is me ...
... pronoun " sounds so out - of - the - blue to us because it is a rule not of English but of Latin , where one would indeed say sum ego " it is I , " with the nominative pronoun ego . In Ancient Rome , it would have been sum me " it is me ...
Page 68
... pronoun should be a subject pronoun , being , after all , part of the subject of the sentence . " Who went to the store ? Billy went , and , well , you don't say ' Me went , ' do you ? Well , then , it should be ' Billy and I went to ...
... pronoun should be a subject pronoun , being , after all , part of the subject of the sentence . " Who went to the store ? Billy went , and , well , you don't say ' Me went , ' do you ? Well , then , it should be ' Billy and I went to ...
Page 121
... pronoun . It does , how- ever , have a presently singular gender - neutral pronoun , and that is none other than the they , which all of us use in this function all of the time despite the frowns of prescriptivists . We are told that ...
... pronoun . It does , how- ever , have a presently singular gender - neutral pronoun , and that is none other than the they , which all of us use in this function all of the time despite the frowns of prescriptivists . We are told that ...
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