Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard EnglishThough there is a contingent of linguists who fight the fact, our language is always changing--not only through slang, but sound, syntax, and words' meanings as well. Debunking the myth of "pure" standard English, tackling controversial positions, and eschewing politically correct arguments, linguist John McWhorter considers speech patterns and regional accents to demonstrate just how the changes do occur. Wielding reason and humor, McWhorter ultimately explains why we must embrace these changes, ultimately revealing our American English in all its variety, expressiveness, and power. |
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Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Language A Living Organism | 5 |
The Heart of the Matter Lava Lamps and Language | 7 |
Natural Seasonings The Linguistic Melting Pot | 35 |
Leave Your Language Alone The Speech Error Hoax | 61 |
In Centenary Honor of Mark H Liddell The Shakespearean Tragedy | 87 |
Missing the Nose on Our Face Pronouns and the Feminist Revolution | 117 |
Black English Is You Is or Is You Aint a Language? | 127 |
Other editions - View all
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 audience basic Black and standard black children Black English Black English sound black speech black students bridging advocates bridging approach British dialects classroom code-switching complex creole languages culture dard developed dialect of English dialect readers difficult endings English dialects English speakers example fact final find first five French gender-neutral pronoun German glish grammar guage Gullah Haitian Haitian Creole influence issue Jamaican patois John Rickford language change language mixture Latin linguistic means Media Lengua nonstandard British nonstandard dialects noun Oakland Old English patterns person play prepositions problem pronoun Quechua reading rules Saramaccan seen sense sentence structures separate language Shakespeare Shirley simply singular slang slaves sound system Spanish speak specific speech variety Sranan standard dialect standard English sure teachers tense things tion translation verb vowel walk West African languages words writing
Bibliographic information
| Title | Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard English |
| Author | John Mcwhorter |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Basic Books, 2001 |
| ISBN | 0738204463, 9780738204468 |
| Length | 294 pages |
| Subjects | › › Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |