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 139
... seen her yesterday . ” But " I done seen her a year ago " immediately gives a speaker away as inauthentic . This is more or less how the perfect have is used in standard English , but done has another usage where standard have is not ...
... seen her yesterday . ” But " I done seen her a year ago " immediately gives a speaker away as inauthentic . This is more or less how the perfect have is used in standard English , but done has another usage where standard have is not ...
Page 140
... seen as incorrect French ! French also has multiple negation : Nobody has ever seen anything is : Personne n - ' a jamais rien vu . Nobody not - has never nothing seen Yet we can be sure that the French , notoriously proud of their ...
... seen as incorrect French ! French also has multiple negation : Nobody has ever seen anything is : Personne n - ' a jamais rien vu . Nobody not - has never nothing seen Yet we can be sure that the French , notoriously proud of their ...
Page 159
... seen , African languages are ex- tremely unlike English in all ways - sound structure ( note the pure consonant - vowel structure of the Ewe sentence above ) and word order are utterly foreign to any English white or Black . Because ...
... seen , African languages are ex- tremely unlike English in all ways - sound structure ( note the pure consonant - vowel structure of the Ewe sentence above ) and word order are utterly foreign to any English white or Black . Because ...
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