Doing Our Own Thing [Paperback]

John McWhorter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2004

In Doing Our Own Thing, critically acclaimed linguist and cultural critic John McWhorter traces the precipitous decline of language in contemporary America, arguing persuasively that casual, everyday speech has conquered the formal in all arenas, from oratory to poetry to everyday journalism—and has even had dire consequences for our musical culture. McWhorter argues that the swift and startling change in written and oral communication emanated from the countercultural revolution of the 1960s and its ideology that established forms and formality were autocratic and artificial. While acknowledging that the evolution of language is in and of itself inevitable and often benign, he warns that the near-total loss of formal expression in America is unprecedented in modern history, and has reached a crisis point in our culture in which our very ability to convey ideas and arguments effectively is gravely threatened.

By turns compelling and harrowing, passionate and judicious, Doing Our Own Thing is required reading for all concerned about the state of our language—and the future of intellectual life in America. BACKCOVER: “Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable.” —The Economist

“Provocative, funny. . . McWhorter suggests that prose ought to be something ‘we decorate out of a basic sense of exuberance of living.’” —Andrea Behr, San Francisco Chronicle

“An entertaining and provocative analysis of the way we use language, while also suggesting that we should love it.” —Charles Matthews, San Jose Mercury News

“McWhorter is a gifted young linguist who seeks to understand the change in our verbal habits rather than just bemoan it, and his analysis is insightful, richly documented and, yes, eloquently written.” —Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate and The Language Instinct

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Acclaimed linguist McWhorter (The Power of Babel [2002]) explores the social dynamics that have changed the English language since the 1960s and threaten to erode our intellectual prowess. Comparing past speakers from Abraham Lincoln to Mario Cuomo to more modern speakers, including President George W. Bush, McWhorter laments the loss of the art of oration, notwithstanding Jesse Jackson and the black preaching tradition. He traces the current emphasis on oral versus written speech across a variety of cultures and times. McWhorter focuses on the forces at work in the U.S. that have heightened the appeal of plain-speaking since the 1960s, including the influence of music, the breakdown of racial barriers, and the rise in immigration and technology. While he sees the trend toward emphasizing the oral over the written as "the celebration of the art in spoken language," he laments the impact on our ability to read, write, and critique. McWhorter's eloquent style and cogent analysis will appeal to readers concerned about trends in American education and communication. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"McWhorter's arguments are sharply reasoned, refreshingly honest, and thoroughly original; and befitting a book on language, they are lucidly and elegantly expressed." (Steven Pinker, author of The Language Instinct) "A far-ranging, lively excursion through the nature and history of language. There may be 6,000 tongues in the world, but only one word for this... fascinating." (The Washington Post) "Startling, provocative, and remarkably entertaining." (The San Diego Union Tribune) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (September 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592400841
• ISBN-13: 978-1592400843
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read The Power of Babel Instead, December 30, 2003

By 

takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care (Hardcover)

First off, let me say that McWhorter's The Power of Babel was one of the best books on language I have read. It is so dense with information presented in a readable, positive style, that I think I'll read it again.

Doing Our Own Thing seems to have been written by McWhorter's evil twin. He assures us near the beginning that this will not be a John Simon-type screed bemoaning the degradation of language in America. Then he goes on to bemoan the degradation of language in America. He manages to be just as pedantic as any language maven about the fact that "Billy and me went to the store" is NOT an ungrammatical sentence, mentioning the same example at regular intervals throughout the book.

Doing Our Own Thing seems like a collection of the author's pet peeves loosely connected to make up a book. McWhorter is concerned about the lack of memorable public speech today and the decline in quality of lyrics, especially in musical theater. He is also annoyed by baggy pants, poetry, and Democrats.

In decrying the decline of American speech today, he claims that no public figure can extemporaneously concoct complex sentences and thoughts. Everyone speaks like a regular guy, or worse, like someone a regular guy can feel superior to. But I can recall Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton giving speeches, that while not memorable in a William Jennings Bryan or even John F. Kennedy style, were complex, yet clear. Bill Clinton's speech at the memorial service for the two security guards who were killed at the House of Representatives was eloquent, for instance.

McWhorter mentions screenwriter David Mamet as someone who is in touch with real speech and can write dialogue that is both authentic and dramatic. This was a particular surprise to me, since I recently saw Heist on video, a Mamet film, and was distracted from the plot several times by painful dialogue. Not only did all of the characters speak with the same voice, they said things like "cute as a bucketful of kittens" and "as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton." If that is authentic speech, then I must be hanging out with a different crowd than McWhorter.

And so it would seem. McWhorter mentions, more than once, that he likes to go to piano bars where you can not only listen to show tunes, but sing along. He notes that there are few straight men at these bars, and for that reason, he finds them an excellent place to meet women. Indeed.

It is not surprising that someone who loves language enough to have made it his life's work would be upset at what he perceives to be the decline of his first langauge. But sometimes his complaints have little to do with language at all. He shows us a soap ad from 1929 that has six panels and quite a bit more text than the typical print ad today. Then McWhorter wonders whether ordinary people in 1929 would have used words like "dainty," which appear in the ad (as he uses the word "exquisite" to describe this very ad). Perhaps a better observation is that few ads these days are as wordy because they need to get our attention fast. When was the last time you saw a 60-second commercial on TV? They used to exist, but now advertisers know they only have 15 seconds to get our attention. Is that a language problem, or something else?

Doing Our Own Thing is definitely readable and there is enough here to get you thinking (not unlike talk radio), but if you want to read a good book about language, I recommend Power of Babel instead.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking and perhaps convincing, though with some weak points, July 4, 2007

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Doing Our Own Thing (Paperback)

John McWhorter has long had a double identity. As a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, he's written on the evolution of languages over time (THE POWER OF BABEL) and on English dialectology (WORD ON THE STREET). But he's also a cultural commentator, until recently directing his attention to the issues facing African-Americans (LOSING THE RACE and AUTHENTICALLY BLACK). In DOING OUR OWN THING: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care he combines his two interests. McWhorter claims that there's indeed a real problem with the English that we hear today in the media and from our politics, and the English we read in popular literature.

McWhorter, like all reputable linguists, will readily state that all languages are essentially equal in that they serve the basic needs of their bodies of speakers. His argument is not that English is going downhill in a way that is reducing people to unintelligent brutes who can't get their message across. No, McWhorter believes that the decline of oratorical skills and literary flair is simply depriving English-speaking culture of some beauty that people could enjoy. He pairs letters from grade-school dropouts of the 1800s with newspaper articles by professional journalists of today to show that, yes, in days of yore people used to appreciate the skill they could display in writing elegant prose, and everyone was capable of giving it a go. He puts the Gettysburg Address next to what a professional speechwriter prepared for President Bush to show that nowadays our politicians provide uninspiring and half-hearted explanations of their motivations and goals. English in the public sphere, McWhorter claims, is lame.

McWhorter has no problem with people on the street talking like they are wont to. He notes that the civil engineer of a century ago who wrote a lovely letter to his sweetheart likely used much coarser language on the job with his construction men. But there should be a place for linguistic virtuosity. Great literature, which is the very exploitation of a language's possibilities, is today rarely encountered in the mainstream media. Poetry is replaced by the Spoken Word, where there's little elegance or artfullness in the construction, just rants against the Man. Indeed, McWhorter traces much of the downhill trend to the 1960s, when the rebellion against authorities tragically entailed a rejection of fine arts, which was mistakenly seen as elitist.

McWhorter extends the argument to music, feeling that popular music today concentrates on rhythm at the expense of other parameters of music. Compare a rap song to a fine jazz tune from half a century ago: once upon a time popular music was rich. This extension is reasonable, but the musical portion of the book is so slim that it seems an after-thought; would that he have fleshed it out a bit. I'm also not sure I buy McWhorter's assertion that English-speaking cultures are the only ones neglecting linguistic virtuosity. Sure, there are cultures out there where speaking eloquently still elicits wonder, but things like poetry are dead in lots of places. Just as the average Dane if he knows who Pia Tafdrup or Ole Sarvig are, or the average Japanese young person if he'd prefer to put down his manga and enjoy some Kawabata instead. The trend may have started in the United States, fount of much international popular culture, but all developed societies are going post-literary.

I am a graduate student of linguistics because I love the diversity of human speech. I am fascinated by the rainbow of languages on Earth, and how within each there is a lively array of registers. But in English, as well as various other languages I speak, things are getting awfully monochromatic and the spice is gone. With DOING OUR OWN THING McWhorter might not be able to stop this massive trend, but it's admirable that he notices there's a problem, and the book is sure to be thought-provoking for the lovers of language, literature, and fine music among us.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Study of America's Linguistic Transition to the Informal, July 13, 2004

By 

D. A. Martin "Avid Reader" (Morocco) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care (Hardcover)

There was a time not long ago in our history when an elaborate command of the English language was considered part of the fabric of American culture. Orator Edward Everett kept a crowd hanging on his every word during his three-hour speech (yes, three hours!) at Gettysburg in 1863 because he was an excellent orator in a time when American society valued excellent orators. Even during the first half of the 20th century, a command of spoken and written English on a level that today would confound many college students was not only required by the time one finished the eighth grade, but was the social norm; ain't so anymore.

In Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care, John McWhorter examines this cultural decline in the use of high-fallutin English in contemporary America. He shows that people were taught from grade school, whether or not they went on for higher education, to always put the English language in its Sunday best. W.E.B. Du Bois stands out in particular. Du Bois's first assignment in a composition class at Harvard in 1890 was to write about himself. This is what he wrote:

"For the usual purposes of identification I have been labeled in this life: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on the day after Washington's birthday, in 1868. I shall room during the present twelve-month at number twenty Flagg Street, Cambridge. As to who I really am, I am much in doubt, and can consequently give little reliable information from casual hints and observations. I doubt not that there are many who could supply better data than the writer. In the midst then of personal uncertainty I can only supply a few alleged facts from memory according to the usual way."

And if that's not enough, he finishes with this closing linguistic zinger:

"I have something to say to the world and I have taken English twelve in order to say it well."

This example speaks volumes about the cultural currency that a high command of English possessed back then, and which no longer exists. Can you imagine anyone writing or speaking like this today and not be viewed as pretentious, arrogant or just plain uppity? What happened to cause American society to no longer value such an elevated command of our language?

The authors shows that the 1960's, which scorned the American Establishment as oppressive and constricting, also caused modern-day America to view the highly stylized English of earlier generations as old-fashioned and morally suspect - hence the linguistic shift from the formal to the informal. Americans of an earlier time went out of their way to write and speak good English, and the gap between written and spoken English was indeed wide. The 1960's (McWhorter puts it around 1965 exactly) changed all that. Now, we just talk - and we write how we talk. Using dressed-up English is just so "old school." This counter-cultural revolution is also reflected in poetry, music and journalism. Furthermore, the author points our how this phenomenon is uniquely American: we just do not love our own language today like other countries love theirs (most notably France).

What new American dialect, then, best embodies this new linguistic counter-cultural paradigm? Why, Black English, of course. McWhorter points out how Americans of all stripes since the 1960's have incorporated Black English and its accompanying body language and vocal cadence into this counter-cultural toolkit. By no means criticizing Black English, he devotes considerable space in chapter five analyzing the cultural meaning of the 1970's funk music hit "Play That Funky Music, White Boy." For the P.C. crowd, try to tell a white guy to "Perform with spiritual dedication the bewitchingly vernacular songs familiar to us, young Caucasian male," and see how far that gets you.

Although the author points out that the natural evolution of language in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, as all world languages evolve, he does point out some important drawbacks to the modern-day tendency to "dress down" English. This can be seen particularly in the modern education establishment, where the emphasis on the formal language acquisition of earlier generations has been all but tossed out the window. This does not bode well for anyone, but it is particularly damaging to black and immigrant schoolchildren.

McWhorter covers a lot of ground in Doing Our Own Thing, giving the reader plenty to chew on. It is a fascinating look into how the 1960's transformed American society from one that spoke the language and held it in high esteem to one in which people just talk. Regrettably, it looks as if this trend in linguistic informality (some would call it pure laziness) will continue.