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 4
... basic principles in accessible fashion in order to help bridge the gap between linguists ' perception of language and the public's . The first section will outline our basic concepts . The second will present three applications of the ...
... basic principles in accessible fashion in order to help bridge the gap between linguists ' perception of language and the public's . The first section will outline our basic concepts . The second will present three applications of the ...
Page 86
... basic message of this chapter in a pithy comment that is so well put that I will give him the final word : I have no sympathy with the criticism which would treat English as a dead language — a thing crystallized at an arbitrarily ...
... basic message of this chapter in a pithy comment that is so well put that I will give him the final word : I have no sympathy with the criticism which would treat English as a dead language — a thing crystallized at an arbitrarily ...
Page 97
... basic words and in scores of fundamental sentence structures . For this reason , we are faced with a language that , while clearly recogni- zable as the English we speak , is different to an extent that makes partial comprehension a ...
... basic words and in scores of fundamental sentence structures . For this reason , we are faced with a language that , while clearly recogni- zable as the English we speak , is different to an extent that makes partial comprehension a ...
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-American children African-American students Afrocentric ain't American English audience basic Black and standard black children Black English Black English sound black speech black students bridging advocates bridging approach classroom code-switching complex creole languages culture dard developed dialect of English dialect readers endings English dialects English speakers example expression fact French gender-neutral pronoun glish grammar guage Gullah Haitian Haitian Creole issue Jamaican patois John Rickford language change language mixture languages spoken Latin less linguistic means Media Lengua nonstandard dialects noun Old English patterns person play prepositions problem pronoun Quechua reading reason rules Saramaccan Scots seen sense sentence structures separate language Shakespeare Shirley simply singular slang slaves sound system Spanish speak speech variety Sranan standard dialect standard English sure teachers tense things tion translation verb vowel walk West African languages words writing