Customer Reviews

The Word On The Street

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"The Word on the Street is one of the best books ever written on language and pub- lic affairs. John McWhorter shows us how English is, was, and will be spoken, and spells out the implications for how it ought to be used and taught. His arguments are sharply reasoned, refreshingly honest, thoroughly original, and - befitting a book on language - are lucidly and elegantly written. The Word on the Street is important, eye-opening, and a pleasure to read."

McWhorter's book is a very elegant and accessible look at English language, its history, development and possible future. He abhors proscriptive grammar and pronunciation and argues his corner forcefully. It's a great pleasure to read. He argues a bit too forcefully, though, implying motives to 'language conservatives' and those who resist the 'go-with-the-flow' tendencies in education. He impugns them and belittles them rather more than necessary, in my opinion. Where he is strongest, though, and best able to make his case, is in his discussion of "Black English" as a dialect of Standard English, no more strange or feeble than, say, Scots English. Following this assessment, he argues that attempts to teach through Black English are misguided at best. He shows how, world wide, other countries do not treat dialects of their native language as flawed, just 'non-standard.' Nor do they have to modify their educational system to reach these students, he states. He also notes how these dialects have far greater differences from the standard than does Black English from Standard American English. Definitely worth reading and enjoying. Worth considering, too, the next time discussions of just what English is come about.

Word on the Street is an accessible introduction to the descriptivism of modern linguistics -- and this is most certainly a book written for the general audience, not for students of linguistics. Much of the book is taken up building McWhorter's argument for the basic linguistic equality of all spoken idioms/languages/dialects, which is to say the capacity every spoken language has to articulate all the finest and most specific aspects of human experience. This is all very well and good, an easy introduction for the lay reader, and a strong basis from which McWhorter then proceeds to argue (1) that Standard Black English is neither more nor less than a spoken variant of English, on par with any other, and (2) that the contortion of the public education system to deliver instruction in variant 'non-standard' forms of English or other languages is not helpful in overcoming the basic obstacle that underperforming inner-city children face in school -- namely poverty, and the lack of emotional and intellectual resources that it engenders.

There are two troublesome aspects to this book, which might be a bit confusing for the lay reader. First, McWhorter doesn't sufficiently distinguish between the written and spoken forms of a language -- the two are manifestly different, both in the ways they're used as communicative media and in the ways they evolve over time. Second, it's not entirely clear why he argues on the one hand that Shakespeare should be 'translated' into modern standard English, so that it can be more accessible to theater audiences and schoolchildren; and on the other hand that the 'translation' of texts into Black English is counterproductive in helping children with little Standard English exposure to learn to read.

All of this aside, I recommend the book: McWhorter writes well, and his axe-grinding (as another reviewer put it) at least gives one something to think about.

From the reviews and the blurb on the book jacket, I thought this book was going to discuss a variety of aspects about the history and development of the English language. In actuality, McWhorter's inclusion of historical information is all a setup to present his main idea: that Black English is simply one of many dialects of American English, not a substandard, careless, or slang way of talking.

He makes his central point well -- I didn't agree with this thesis before, but McWhorter has persuaded me that he is correct -- however, he hits the reader over the head with his supporting information by going over and over what he said again and again. In too many spots the going gets heavy as you slog through repetitions and reminders of points already made. McWhorter seems almost condescending at times by not seeming to expect his readers to retain anything that was presented earlier.

I nearly gave up in frustration several times, but managed to persevere on to the end. I'm glad I did -- I learned quite a bit and completely changed the way I view Black English -- but it was a struggle at times.

This is surprisingly and refreshingly easy-to-read, one of the few popular books on linguistics that made me want to go back and re-read it. I felt that McWhorter's explanations, whether for his reasons for a modern translation of Shakespeare's works, or why any one dialect of a language is neither inherently "better" or "worse" than another, were crystal-clear, his arguments well-supported. His prose never once veered into that of the academics--everything here is commendably understandable and straightforward, whether one's education finished in high school or in college. He is obviously one who feels that linguistics should be made accessible and useful, and this book goes admirably far in that direction.