Language Myths

A unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of the most popular myths about language: The Media Are Ruining English; Children Can't Speak or Write Properly Anymore; America is Ruining the English Language. The tone is lively and entertaining throughout and there are cartoons from Doonesbury andThe Wizard of Id to illustrate some of the points. The book should have a wide readership not only amongst students who want to read leading linguists writing about popular misconceptions but also amongst the large number of people who enjoy reading about language in general.

Laurie Bauer is a Reader in Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and the author of many books and articles on word formation, international varieties of English, and language change in current English.
Peter Trudgill is professor of English linguistics at Fribourg, Switzerland. An author of many books and articles on sociolinguistics and dialectology, he has carried out linguistic fieldwork in most countries.

A Note on the Contributors
Introduction
The Meanings of Words Should Not be Allowed to Vary or Change	p. 1
Some Languages are Just Not Good Enough	p. 9
The Media are Ruining English	p. 15
French is a Logical Language	p. 23
English Spelling is Kattastroffik	p. 32
Women Talk Too Much	p. 41
Some Languages are Harder than Others	p. 50
Children Can't Speak or Write Properly Any More	p. 58
In the Appalachians They Speak like Shakespeare	p. 66
Some Languages Have No Grammar	p. 77
Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly	p. 85
Bad Grammar is Slovenly	p. 94
Black Children are Verbally Deprived	p. 103
Double Negatives are Illogical	p. 113
TV Makes People Sound the Same	p. 123
You Shouldn't Say 'It is Me' because 'Me' is Accusative	p. 132
They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City	p. 139
Some Languages are Spoken More Quickly than Others	p. 150
Aborigines Speak a Primitive Language	p. 159
Everyone Has an Accent Except Me	p. 169
America is Ruining the English Language	p. 176
Index	p. 183
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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Summary

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