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Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage
Is English broken? Do bad grammar, slang, and illogical constructions signal a decline in standards of usage? Do e-mail and text messages corrupt the art of writing? In short, is our language going to the dogs?
It's easy to think so, just as it's easy to listen to people speaking a foreign language and think that they're doing something more complicated and interesting than we're doing in speaking English. But English is complicated and interesting too. Consider the real truth behind these widespread beliefs: of English. And consider the future of the English language on the global stage.
It's easy to think so, just as it's easy to listen to people speaking a foreign language and think that they're doing something more complicated and interesting than we're doing in speaking English. But English is complicated and interesting too. Consider the real truth behind these widespread beliefs: of English. And consider the future of the English language on the global stage.
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First published January 1, 2012
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652 people want to read
About the author
John McWhorter
48 books1,703 followersJohn Hamilton McWhorter (Professor McWhorter uses neither his title nor his middle initial as an author) is an American academic and linguist who is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he teaches linguistics, American studies, philosophy, and music history. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His research specializes on how creole languages form, and how language grammars change as the result of sociohistorical phenomena.
A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas
A popular writer, McWhorter has written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico, Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Daily News, City Journal, The New Yorker, among others; he is also contributing editor at The Atlantic and hosts Slate's Lexicon Valley podcas
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
December 30, 2019
It could be that I've read too many linguistics books to really learn a great deal from this one. The minus points were too much grammar, history I was already familiar with, discussion of style books like The Elements of Style Illustrated (I really couldn't care less what is proper and not proper) and plenty more I got bored with.
The really interesting chapters were:
Black English - how this is a streamlining of the language that has been going on since the year dot. McWhorter says that English can be thought of as Easy (streamlined) German. So Black English isn't some uneducated slang language, but a streamlined English with unnecessary for understanding stripped away.
Speech v Writing and Speechmaking. No one writes like they speak because speech is 'on the fly' as it were, writing is thought-out even when you don't think you are thinking it out. (Like me writing this or any other review).
Poetry. I'm not big into poetry, apart from the romantic Keats, school spoiled that for me. But it was interesting to hear that in an early episode of Bugs Bunny, he was sitting on a log reading a poem. Because that's what people did back then. Edna St. Vincent Millay was a big book and radio star reading her own poetry. Everyone had an anthology of poetry on their bookshelf. But it's morphed now into song lyrics and the newest and most popular form of it, rap. Spoken poetry often with complex inside rhymes (afair Slim Shady specialised in that).
Why Texting is Misunderstood. Texting, says McWhorter, is a new kind of communication, written speech. We don't text as we write, but more as we speak. It's not thought out and responses are fast.
The Living Past and Future of English. The final chapter. McWhorter thinks that China will become the dominant country of the world in many ways. But, because of the complexity of it's written and language and even more because each of the syllables that make up Chinese has seven different tonal ways of saying them, and each tone changes the word completely. English with it's 26 letter alphabet and tones used more for expression than meaning is much easier.
McWhorter thinks that in the future people may speak English as the lingua franca, Chinese as the language of business, their own language at home and possibly a fourth one. School for the non-linguistically talented children of the world will become a misery if that happens.
One rather sweet little nugget. In Japan, to text 'thank you' you can just type 39. 3 sounds like 'san' and 9 like 'kue', sank kue, thank you :-)
To sum up, if you are new to listening/reading linguistic books on English, this will probably be very enjoyable, but if you are a fan of the wonderful John McWhorter, who is a great lecturer, personal and personable, friendly, sense of humour and the ability to make difficult concepts easily understood, you've probably gone too far for this book to be a 5-star.
So 39 for reading :-) And 4 for the book.
The really interesting chapters were:
Black English - how this is a streamlining of the language that has been going on since the year dot. McWhorter says that English can be thought of as Easy (streamlined) German. So Black English isn't some uneducated slang language, but a streamlined English with unnecessary for understanding stripped away.
Speech v Writing and Speechmaking. No one writes like they speak because speech is 'on the fly' as it were, writing is thought-out even when you don't think you are thinking it out. (Like me writing this or any other review).
Poetry. I'm not big into poetry, apart from the romantic Keats, school spoiled that for me. But it was interesting to hear that in an early episode of Bugs Bunny, he was sitting on a log reading a poem. Because that's what people did back then. Edna St. Vincent Millay was a big book and radio star reading her own poetry. Everyone had an anthology of poetry on their bookshelf. But it's morphed now into song lyrics and the newest and most popular form of it, rap. Spoken poetry often with complex inside rhymes (afair Slim Shady specialised in that).
Why Texting is Misunderstood. Texting, says McWhorter, is a new kind of communication, written speech. We don't text as we write, but more as we speak. It's not thought out and responses are fast.
The Living Past and Future of English. The final chapter. McWhorter thinks that China will become the dominant country of the world in many ways. But, because of the complexity of it's written and language and even more because each of the syllables that make up Chinese has seven different tonal ways of saying them, and each tone changes the word completely. English with it's 26 letter alphabet and tones used more for expression than meaning is much easier.
McWhorter thinks that in the future people may speak English as the lingua franca, Chinese as the language of business, their own language at home and possibly a fourth one. School for the non-linguistically talented children of the world will become a misery if that happens.
One rather sweet little nugget. In Japan, to text 'thank you' you can just type 39. 3 sounds like 'san' and 9 like 'kue', sank kue, thank you :-)
To sum up, if you are new to listening/reading linguistic books on English, this will probably be very enjoyable, but if you are a fan of the wonderful John McWhorter, who is a great lecturer, personal and personable, friendly, sense of humour and the ability to make difficult concepts easily understood, you've probably gone too far for this book to be a 5-star.
So 39 for reading :-) And 4 for the book.
August 15, 2015
Absolutely loved this. McWhorter is a brilliant lecturer (and at 1.75 speed, he sounds superhumanly brilliant =). As I began, however, I wasn't sure how much more McWhorter had to teach me given the other things I've read and enjoyed by him. I'm happy to say I stand humbled and enriched and, hopefully, a little closer to "educated." Language is endlessly fascinating.
Particularly helpful for me: McWhorter explores the cultural reasons behind the impossible-to-miss "informalization" of American English over the last century. There was a day when even casual speech, when quoted in a newspaper, had to be—it just had to be—"formalized." People are quoted in old newspapers as saying things that no one could possibly say in real life, only write. Senators up till not all that long ago wouldn't dream of delivering anything on the Senate floor but a flowery, formalized, oratory. Now hardly anyone speaks in a formal tone. Why? McWhorter points to the anti-authoritarian 1960s and to the self-assurance America gained as a nation in the mid-20th century (i.e., now that we're on top of the world we can relax). He doesn't point to texting.
In fact, he proposes a helpful new taxonomy through which to view texting. Think of a graph of four quadrants mapping speech and writing on the side and formal/informal on the top. in which we have formal speech ("fundamentalist oratory" is his repeated example), informal speech (all other speech, pretty much), formal writing (most of our writing now) and a new category: informal writing (e-mail and—especially—texting). Great. Texting fills in an empty gap. It's creative and interesting—and if you don't believe me, use one of McWhorter's common strategies and examine texting in other languages. It's clever in Japanese. It doesn't ruin writing in German. Nor in America.
Random: he also explained how Edward became "Ned." I am forever in his debt. You gotta listen.
Particularly helpful for me: McWhorter explores the cultural reasons behind the impossible-to-miss "informalization" of American English over the last century. There was a day when even casual speech, when quoted in a newspaper, had to be—it just had to be—"formalized." People are quoted in old newspapers as saying things that no one could possibly say in real life, only write. Senators up till not all that long ago wouldn't dream of delivering anything on the Senate floor but a flowery, formalized, oratory. Now hardly anyone speaks in a formal tone. Why? McWhorter points to the anti-authoritarian 1960s and to the self-assurance America gained as a nation in the mid-20th century (i.e., now that we're on top of the world we can relax). He doesn't point to texting.
In fact, he proposes a helpful new taxonomy through which to view texting. Think of a graph of four quadrants mapping speech and writing on the side and formal/informal on the top. in which we have formal speech ("fundamentalist oratory" is his repeated example), informal speech (all other speech, pretty much), formal writing (most of our writing now) and a new category: informal writing (e-mail and—especially—texting). Great. Texting fills in an empty gap. It's creative and interesting—and if you don't believe me, use one of McWhorter's common strategies and examine texting in other languages. It's clever in Japanese. It doesn't ruin writing in German. Nor in America.
Random: he also explained how Edward became "Ned." I am forever in his debt. You gotta listen.
February 4, 2022
For those unfamiliar with The Great Courses, this is an audiobook of a classroom lecture series. Does that fit the definition of a book? Can I, in all good conscience, check this off as "finished" and allow it to count for one of my 2022 "reads"?
I touched on all that in a review of another Great Courses lecture series three years ago, so we will not debate that now. You would, however, be amazed at the variety of impassioned responses that question generated back then!
This lecture is taught by John McWhorter who, in the years since this was released, has joined the staff of The New York Times and written a number of other books, including ones on such non-linguistic topics as Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.
I like McWhorter. He's funny and knows a lot about the words we use and why we use them, which is, after all, what you want from someone teaching about the "Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage." (But why no Oxford Comma?)
The English language really is a funny thing. It's got its oddities to be sure — like, say, the fact that while the plural of "Goose" is "Geese," the plural of "Moose" isn't "Meese" — but its position as the world's lingua franca is surely due first and foremost to the fact that it's so much easier to learn than Mandarin Chinese.
A nice listen, errr, "read," if you like words even a little bit.
I touched on all that in a review of another Great Courses lecture series three years ago, so we will not debate that now. You would, however, be amazed at the variety of impassioned responses that question generated back then!
This lecture is taught by John McWhorter who, in the years since this was released, has joined the staff of The New York Times and written a number of other books, including ones on such non-linguistic topics as Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.
I like McWhorter. He's funny and knows a lot about the words we use and why we use them, which is, after all, what you want from someone teaching about the "Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage." (But why no Oxford Comma?)
The English language really is a funny thing. It's got its oddities to be sure — like, say, the fact that while the plural of "Goose" is "Geese," the plural of "Moose" isn't "Meese" — but its position as the world's lingua franca is surely due first and foremost to the fact that it's so much easier to learn than Mandarin Chinese.
A nice listen, errr, "read," if you like words even a little bit.
January 6, 2020
I read the Course Guidebook that accompanies the DVDs.* It's not narrative, so although it's shorter than a book, it isn't as quick a read as a book of comparable length. It is, of course, much less time-consuming to read than to watch. I have decided not to play the DVDs because I feel that I got a very good idea of the information that McWhorter shared, and of the points he was making.
And it was all fascinating, and entertaining, too.
I like the structure, with vocabulary terms and questions to consider at each chapter/ lesson, and a glossary at the end, and references/ further readings in both positions.
I appreciate that the author/ professor acknowledges the perspective of those of us who are prescriptivists, and even admits to some 'errors of usage' that make him wince, while coming down firmly on the side of descriptivism. He talks about the history of English, and compares it in many interesting ways to many other languages... and he analyses Strunk & White and 'Black English'... and only the most stubborn pedant will still be able to speak of 'correct grammar' after experiencing this course.
Most of us amateur linguists have covered much of this ground before. In fact, he leaves out some things, for example Webster and the ascension of American English. Nor does punctuation get more than a passing mention. But he also introduces concepts and influences less frequently explored in pop linguistic work, for example the extensive influences of Robert Lowth and of William Cobbett on early prescriptive usage, and Charles William Eliot and Mario Savio on modern oratory.
"If we are to impose order on our language, then we have to realize that what we are attempting to impose order on is already, in itself--in a way that we can't change--violently, marvelously, and joyously disorderly."
Now, I have decided to rate this 'Great Course' four stars, because I enjoyed the handbook so much. And I do recommend it to those of you who do know who David Crystal and Lynne Truss are, and who should have Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences on your shelves somewhere. But remember, I can't vouch for his presentation on the screen or as an audio... I bet it's great, but I can't promise.
I'm going to look for actual books by McWhorter, and investigate his bibliography for further reading.
*One final note: my library has this tagged as DVD. I don't know if that's true. They might just be audio CDs but it's not convenient for me to check, sorry.
And it was all fascinating, and entertaining, too.
I like the structure, with vocabulary terms and questions to consider at each chapter/ lesson, and a glossary at the end, and references/ further readings in both positions.
I appreciate that the author/ professor acknowledges the perspective of those of us who are prescriptivists, and even admits to some 'errors of usage' that make him wince, while coming down firmly on the side of descriptivism. He talks about the history of English, and compares it in many interesting ways to many other languages... and he analyses Strunk & White and 'Black English'... and only the most stubborn pedant will still be able to speak of 'correct grammar' after experiencing this course.
Most of us amateur linguists have covered much of this ground before. In fact, he leaves out some things, for example Webster and the ascension of American English. Nor does punctuation get more than a passing mention. But he also introduces concepts and influences less frequently explored in pop linguistic work, for example the extensive influences of Robert Lowth and of William Cobbett on early prescriptive usage, and Charles William Eliot and Mario Savio on modern oratory.
"If we are to impose order on our language, then we have to realize that what we are attempting to impose order on is already, in itself--in a way that we can't change--violently, marvelously, and joyously disorderly."
Now, I have decided to rate this 'Great Course' four stars, because I enjoyed the handbook so much. And I do recommend it to those of you who do know who David Crystal and Lynne Truss are, and who should have Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences on your shelves somewhere. But remember, I can't vouch for his presentation on the screen or as an audio... I bet it's great, but I can't promise.
I'm going to look for actual books by McWhorter, and investigate his bibliography for further reading.
*One final note: my library has this tagged as DVD. I don't know if that's true. They might just be audio CDs but it's not convenient for me to check, sorry.
September 14, 2020
John McWhorter is always enjoyable and informative when talking about the English language, and this is no exception.
It's often popular to talk about the decline of English, bad grammar, and the Awful Effects of texting and email on how we speak and write. We may also tend to think that people doing a foreign language are doing something much more impressive than we are in speaking English,
McWhorter shows us how the things we often denounce as Bad Grammar are often the English language changing in response to changes in our lives, the kinds of changes that English has been undergoing for a thousand years or more--such as the often-denounced verbing of nouns--and normal cultural changes.
We get some great history of the language, which explains just how weird it is, and how it got that way. Many of the case endings and other frills in Indo-European got out in Proto-Germanic due to some other group, possibly Phoenicians, settling in the area and learning it as adults. Then the same thing happened to what became Old English, in contact with large numbers of Norse also learning the language as adults.
Oh, and there were the Welsh, who gifted us with "do," a thing that doesn't exist in any other languages except the Celtic ones--and Welsh had other effects on English as we now speak it.
Other changes, more recent, are cultural. We don't have "let's go hear the currently popular lecturer speak for two or three hours" as a form of entertainment anymore. And we don't expect modern politicians to speak with the kind of formality that Lincoln, or Churchill, or even John Kennedy did. Yet we still have a distinction between formal and informal English; it's just that our version of informal is found in email and texting, while what we find suitable for writing or public speaking is different from what previous generations wanted.
John McWhorter talking about this is a lot more fun than I am. ("Fun" is another interesting word, doing interesting things...) Go listen to it.
I bought this audiobook.
It's often popular to talk about the decline of English, bad grammar, and the Awful Effects of texting and email on how we speak and write. We may also tend to think that people doing a foreign language are doing something much more impressive than we are in speaking English,
McWhorter shows us how the things we often denounce as Bad Grammar are often the English language changing in response to changes in our lives, the kinds of changes that English has been undergoing for a thousand years or more--such as the often-denounced verbing of nouns--and normal cultural changes.
We get some great history of the language, which explains just how weird it is, and how it got that way. Many of the case endings and other frills in Indo-European got out in Proto-Germanic due to some other group, possibly Phoenicians, settling in the area and learning it as adults. Then the same thing happened to what became Old English, in contact with large numbers of Norse also learning the language as adults.
Oh, and there were the Welsh, who gifted us with "do," a thing that doesn't exist in any other languages except the Celtic ones--and Welsh had other effects on English as we now speak it.
Other changes, more recent, are cultural. We don't have "let's go hear the currently popular lecturer speak for two or three hours" as a form of entertainment anymore. And we don't expect modern politicians to speak with the kind of formality that Lincoln, or Churchill, or even John Kennedy did. Yet we still have a distinction between formal and informal English; it's just that our version of informal is found in email and texting, while what we find suitable for writing or public speaking is different from what previous generations wanted.
John McWhorter talking about this is a lot more fun than I am. ("Fun" is another interesting word, doing interesting things...) Go listen to it.
I bought this audiobook.
August 2, 2016
John McWhorter has turned me into a linguistics nerd. I love his lectures. They are so full of interesting tidbits that I wouldn't know where to begin to try to summarize them. What really makes them so enjoyable, though, is the way in which he presents the information. He's very casual and humorous, while still being incredibly informative. If you have any interest in the evolution of human language, I'd recommend pretty much anything by him. His course Language A to Z is his shortest and probably a better introduction than this one, though.
February 4, 2024
John McWhorter is my favorite Audible author. He is so funny, he is never even for a second boring, he always has an interesting set of facts and factoids to share, and he helps you think linguistic matters through. If you want to know how to talk at the water cooler, listen to his lectures. If you want to seriously understand many of the nuances of languages around the world, you better listen to his books. He is really the best on Audible.
This book focuses on the English language, though it also looks at a plethora of other languages to cement the facts presented here. The most important lesson is that as long as the idea can be communicated to a satisfactory degree, then the uttered sentence is not wrong. Linguistics studies the spontaneous rules and natural regularities of languages, but it does not dictate these rules. Indeed, even logic does not dictate the rules of language usage, as double negatives can be either positive or negative, and so on. This is but one (important) lesson of the book. There are very many (plurimi) more to be learned here.
This book focuses on the English language, though it also looks at a plethora of other languages to cement the facts presented here. The most important lesson is that as long as the idea can be communicated to a satisfactory degree, then the uttered sentence is not wrong. Linguistics studies the spontaneous rules and natural regularities of languages, but it does not dictate these rules. Indeed, even logic does not dictate the rules of language usage, as double negatives can be either positive or negative, and so on. This is but one (important) lesson of the book. There are very many (plurimi) more to be learned here.
August 16, 2020
Professor McWhorter's lectures are endlessly fascinating, more so for linguists and trivia buffs. They pack a lot of information. Yet, the professor does not allow them to weigh heavily on anyone looking for more perfunctory understanding. The lectures cover a broad swathe of topics without much repetition, which means nuggets of new understanding and "aha" moments are possible everywhere.
That said, the good professor takes the highly liberal view that everything one says, writes, reads, etc. in English is right and the language - the way it is used everywhere - is the best it could be. Beyond a point, the pervasive attitude comes in the way of the lectures taking any corrective, constructive, instructive, or suggestive stance. One may learn how what might be today has come into being through some fascinating historical tales, but they offer little to anyone planning to improve any language-related skills. I may say "me is name whatever." The professor might still congratulate me on being the new-age Shakespeare.
One can understand why it is challenging to pass value judgments or critiques on any type of language usage in today's universities. Still, the lectures could have talked about some more correct ways that enrich the lives of their speakers/writers/readers and vice versa. The professor must be aware of numerous examples of bad language use creating avoidable problems. They make zero appearances in the zeal to approve everything and not sound like a language elitist. Essentially, the lecture series suffers materially because of an oppressive, underlying political correctness.
That said, the good professor takes the highly liberal view that everything one says, writes, reads, etc. in English is right and the language - the way it is used everywhere - is the best it could be. Beyond a point, the pervasive attitude comes in the way of the lectures taking any corrective, constructive, instructive, or suggestive stance. One may learn how what might be today has come into being through some fascinating historical tales, but they offer little to anyone planning to improve any language-related skills. I may say "me is name whatever." The professor might still congratulate me on being the new-age Shakespeare.
One can understand why it is challenging to pass value judgments or critiques on any type of language usage in today's universities. Still, the lectures could have talked about some more correct ways that enrich the lives of their speakers/writers/readers and vice versa. The professor must be aware of numerous examples of bad language use creating avoidable problems. They make zero appearances in the zeal to approve everything and not sound like a language elitist. Essentially, the lecture series suffers materially because of an oppressive, underlying political correctness.
June 3, 2012
I learning about all the misconceptions I have about what English is. I've long known that languages change, but I've never known the extent of the changes during the evolution of English. I thought I knew how English was supposed to be spoken, and I know people who think, like I thought, that English has a "proper" way to talk and an "improper" way. I knew that English changes, as all languages change, but I didn't know the extent "proper" English doesn't exist. There are words we think are improper, even though they used to be considered proper. There are words that we think are proper that used to be thought crude. I recommend this course to anyone who has an interest in the English language.
September 22, 2023
I randomly picked this up off the library website and I'm so glad I did. I love history and trivia and these lectures are full of them. That with a speaker that is not only exceptionally knowledgeable about the subject but also enthusiastic and you have a winning set of lectures on a subject that if given to the wrong person would be dry as dirt and almost insufferable.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
December 30, 2020
Fascinating explanations of language tidbits and histories (not only English). John McWhorter is really a brilliant linguist, but I find his tone so smug that it’s off-putting.
July 19, 2017
It was a very interesting discussion into the history of the English language as we know it. The things he had to say were very interesting!
He tried his best to mimic the accents, where at first I did find it amusing, toward the end of the lectures I found them not only somewhat annoying, but somewhere between rude and being an arse.
From the first episode, this guy just rubbed me the wrong way. He's very smart and he knows he's smart, which to me illustrates something immature about his self-awareness.
So in a fancy way I'm saying he's kind of a dick.
He tried his best to mimic the accents, where at first I did find it amusing, toward the end of the lectures I found them not only somewhat annoying, but somewhere between rude and being an arse.
From the first episode, this guy just rubbed me the wrong way. He's very smart and he knows he's smart, which to me illustrates something immature about his self-awareness.
So in a fancy way I'm saying he's kind of a dick.
January 5, 2022
John McWhorter is notorious for being a bit less conscious about the presentation of explanations and being somewhat not always "politically correct", but I guess, for the general public. Even for linguists outside of English studies, it could be pretty interesting. I, for once, was always wondering what makes a scholar interested in studying English since, obviously, it is a very "non-exotic" language. After listening to this audiobook, I found an answer or two. He also provides a bunch of interesting trivia, some of which for a professional linguist might be well-known from before; others appear pretty dull. But it is a good 10 or something hour run if you are puzzled about linguistics, or as a professional would like to hear how it could be presented to the general public.
May 3, 2022
I have listened to and read a lot of John McWhorter over the years, so I wasn’t sure how much new territory this would cover. I was delighted to find so much that I haven’t heard him discuss before.
February 19, 2019
3.5 stars This is similar enough to his other Great Courses audiobook, The Story of Human Language that it is not necessary to listen to both. I'd recommend The Story of Human Language over this one if you are only going to read one.
The biggest problem I had with this series is that the framing needed to be stronger. He covers a lot of topics, but it isn't always clear what is a myth, lie, or half-truth. Otherwise, the content is fascinating and it definitely impacted the way I think about grammar. His audiobook, The Story of Human Language, changed the way I think about language. While there is overlap between the two books, I greatly enjoyed listening to each and found enough content in each to feel it was worth the time to listen to both.
The biggest problem I had with this series is that the framing needed to be stronger. He covers a lot of topics, but it isn't always clear what is a myth, lie, or half-truth. Otherwise, the content is fascinating and it definitely impacted the way I think about grammar. His audiobook, The Story of Human Language, changed the way I think about language. While there is overlap between the two books, I greatly enjoyed listening to each and found enough content in each to feel it was worth the time to listen to both.
May 22, 2015
I love listening to John McWhorter's lectures. The time passes quickly, I almost don't feel as if I am listening to a lecture. I feel as I'm sitting down to lunch with an old friend and we are having an intelligent discussion on how English evolved and our language usage today. I don't feel as if I am in 3rd grade being "lectured to". He doesn't present information In a dry manner. I listen to a lot to teaching company lectures. Some professors present the information in a dry, straightforward manner where I would find it more interesting to let's say stick an ice pick in my eye than continue listening. John McWhorter makes it interesting by using examples from his personal life to illustrate certain concepts. And he has such a joyful attitude, showing the listener how fun the English language is. He makes funny quips, does lots of impersonations of various people including Ed Coch, Marie Dressler and even himself. It really enriches the listening experience. Perhaps this is more a review of his teaching style than the course because so much of what engages the reader is the presentation style.
The first part of the course is the history of the English language. The second and most interesting part is about controversies on how English is used. I did not realize that grammar has so much more depth than just words put in a certain order. "Grammar is a wild, wet, wonderful realm of things more than just rules that people break". I didn't realize that the word " got" conveys a meaning all on its own. The got passive such as in I got hit means that something bad has happened to you or the unexpected happened to you. Anyway, that's just one example. As you can tell, I love his lectures and you should definitely listen.
The first part of the course is the history of the English language. The second and most interesting part is about controversies on how English is used. I did not realize that grammar has so much more depth than just words put in a certain order. "Grammar is a wild, wet, wonderful realm of things more than just rules that people break". I didn't realize that the word " got" conveys a meaning all on its own. The got passive such as in I got hit means that something bad has happened to you or the unexpected happened to you. Anyway, that's just one example. As you can tell, I love his lectures and you should definitely listen.
May 21, 2015
I love this kind of thing - learning about how our language evolved (McWhorter would insist "morphed" was the right word) and the little intricacies that makes words to fascinating. I'm such a language geek.
This is only available as an audiobook, as part of the Great Courses series, and is 24 halfhour-long lectures given by James McWhorter. Listening to him talk, I am forced to reflect on my own teaching, though. I think he and I have some of our speaking foibles in common - specifically, he talks too fast, adds tangential comments he thinks are witty, and subvocalizes at times. Because of this, I was tempted to only give it four stars; however, I love the content so much and admire McWhorter's dedication to becoming the linguist he is that I went ahead with five.
If you are interested in words and language, as I am, you should check this out.
Oh, and added bonus: for 30 minutes a day (roughly the drive to and from work, right?) you can gain the knowledge of an entire college course in just two weeks! (I actually wish each lecture came with a study guide or quiz, available as a .pdf)
This is only available as an audiobook, as part of the Great Courses series, and is 24 halfhour-long lectures given by James McWhorter. Listening to him talk, I am forced to reflect on my own teaching, though. I think he and I have some of our speaking foibles in common - specifically, he talks too fast, adds tangential comments he thinks are witty, and subvocalizes at times. Because of this, I was tempted to only give it four stars; however, I love the content so much and admire McWhorter's dedication to becoming the linguist he is that I went ahead with five.
If you are interested in words and language, as I am, you should check this out.
Oh, and added bonus: for 30 minutes a day (roughly the drive to and from work, right?) you can gain the knowledge of an entire college course in just two weeks! (I actually wish each lecture came with a study guide or quiz, available as a .pdf)
May 19, 2014
This was funny, engaging, and above all, informative. Some of the stuff McWhorter covers in here is stuff you will think about every day, if you are concerned at all with language. I will definitely continue to read McWhorter's stuff. His voice is at once authoritative and approachable, and he's funny as well as learned.
People who are speakers of language (this will include most people reading this review, I'm guessing) will find a lot to interest them here.
People who are speakers of language (this will include most people reading this review, I'm guessing) will find a lot to interest them here.
September 18, 2013
I always love listening to John McWhorter lay down the real rules of language. Lots of fun!
May 17, 2022
I bought this book on a whim since I had audible credits burning a hole in my pocket and did not regret it a single bit! I didn't realize I had already read/listened to John mcWhorter's book "English, the magnificent bastard tounge" until i was about halfway through this book/course.
I have to say that generally when I read/listen to non-fiction, i'm looking to mostly learn new facts/tidbits and this course delivered it in DROVES. Just a few things I learned:
* alone came from all one.
* saying that txt'ing will ruin writing is like saying a song like "yesterday" ruins vivaldi's four seasons. They're not trying to do the same thing.
* the only reasons we accept any grammar is mostly that our culture indoctrinates us on what correct grammar is, and there's no such thing as consistency or logicalness of most anything in most languages.
I think I used to be one of those purists about languages, and how there is one right way or something to say something, and this book has completely changed my mind 180 and destroyed any notions I ever had about the constancy of languages, particularly english. This course covers a supreme range of linguistical topics from pronunciation, to grammar to vocabulary, to what is or isn't proper writing...I felt like I learned more from this course than 4 years in College (and I've a degree in English Literature). =)
Highly recommended if you're interested in the English language, and languages in general. He talks alot about other languages as well, so if your'e looking for a course on the English language in particular, this might not be the one, but I'd be hard pressed to say you'd be disappointed.
I have to say that generally when I read/listen to non-fiction, i'm looking to mostly learn new facts/tidbits and this course delivered it in DROVES. Just a few things I learned:
* alone came from all one.
* saying that txt'ing will ruin writing is like saying a song like "yesterday" ruins vivaldi's four seasons. They're not trying to do the same thing.
* the only reasons we accept any grammar is mostly that our culture indoctrinates us on what correct grammar is, and there's no such thing as consistency or logicalness of most anything in most languages.
I think I used to be one of those purists about languages, and how there is one right way or something to say something, and this book has completely changed my mind 180 and destroyed any notions I ever had about the constancy of languages, particularly english. This course covers a supreme range of linguistical topics from pronunciation, to grammar to vocabulary, to what is or isn't proper writing...I felt like I learned more from this course than 4 years in College (and I've a degree in English Literature). =)
Highly recommended if you're interested in the English language, and languages in general. He talks alot about other languages as well, so if your'e looking for a course on the English language in particular, this might not be the one, but I'd be hard pressed to say you'd be disappointed.
September 17, 2023
I liked the first two-thirds of these lectures more than the rest. The first eight lectures cover the history of English and how it evolved from proto-Indo-European. I've always loved studying how languages evolve, how invasions and refugees and other human contact influence the words and sounds of a language. Chapter 9, which details how Black English emerged and shows how it is a fully valid evolution of English, was particularly fascinating. In Chapters 10 - 16, McWhorter highlights numerous experts through the centuries who have tried to apply "logic" to English grammar, and demonstrates how much of this type of grammar is not particularly helpful.
In Chapters 17 - 24, I felt like McWhorter was getting a little into the weeds. He spends a lot of time showing how native English speakers use certain grammatical constructions without realizing the rules behind what they are saying. Well, anyone who has ever studied a language other than English usually realizes this after a couple of classes. As an English as a Second Language teacher I already knew everything he was talking about, and yet I felt like these lectures were not as focused or entertaining as the earlier ones. I'm just not sure anyone who isn't preparing to teach English to non-native speakers needs to know most of the content of these later lectures. The final three lectures on poetry, texting, and the future of English have not aged well, although I was intrigued by McWhorter's characterization of texting as "written informal speech."
In Chapters 17 - 24, I felt like McWhorter was getting a little into the weeds. He spends a lot of time showing how native English speakers use certain grammatical constructions without realizing the rules behind what they are saying. Well, anyone who has ever studied a language other than English usually realizes this after a couple of classes. As an English as a Second Language teacher I already knew everything he was talking about, and yet I felt like these lectures were not as focused or entertaining as the earlier ones. I'm just not sure anyone who isn't preparing to teach English to non-native speakers needs to know most of the content of these later lectures. The final three lectures on poetry, texting, and the future of English have not aged well, although I was intrigued by McWhorter's characterization of texting as "written informal speech."
December 15, 2019
Professor John McWhorter presents 24 lectures about how the rules of language usage are multifaceted, not always true or are true in only some cases. Especially interesting is how he introduces how words start out as meaning on thing and overtime start to mean something else. An example of this is the word “obnoxious” which most people take to mean something annoying but primarily distasteful. In Henry Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, the entry for obnoxious reads vulnerable to attack; noxa is injury and ob. is toward. Obnoxious as annoying crept in by interpretation because -noxious was in in it. There are numerous other examples he presents including the different types of Intransitive Verbs; Unergative or the kind of things that you do and Unaccusative or the kind of things that happen to you. This is a snapshot of the many interesting and informative things presented. Memorable chapters include the following: Lecture 13: Myth 13-Languages Basically Make Sense, Except for a Few Wrinkles Chronicled in Funny Emails. Lecture 18: Myth 18: The Grammar Rules Most Often Broken are Interesting than the Ones We All follow without Thinking; Lecture 20: Myth 20: Spoken Language Must Be Shabby; Only in Writing Is It Considered and “Real. Myths, Lies and Half-Truths of Language Usage is an engaging and delightful excursion through the complexities of language and its usage.
June 1, 2021
For a few years, I managed an IT team that worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I sat in on meetings in which tweets written by our customer service department were reviewed by medical writers and physicians for accuracy. I wish I could have assigned Lecture 23 "Why Texting Is Misunderstood" to all of us then. Back in those archaic times, tweets were limited to 140 characters and it was not a question of "if" but "which" sacred rule of grammar one had to break to shoehorn the correct meeting into a given exchange. This course would have saved us some heated debates as well as eased my colleagues' minds about the "state of young people these days."
I took this course after watching McWhorter's "Language Families of the World" followed by reading McWhorter's "What Language Is (and What it Isn't, and What it Could Be) and that added depth to the course materials.
So, this was indeed a great Great Course. Heck, at this point I'd sign for "McWhorter Reads from the Phone Book" without blinking. (I expect he'd start with a little riff on his memory of phone books from his childhood. Then I'd love to hear him explain why the name "McWhorter" shifts along the Pennsylvania Turnpike from "mick wudder" as youse drive up in to Philadelphia morphing into something like "mac'whhhorther" when y'all reach Lancaster and finally landing in a unrecognizable heap of "mahk wordah" if yinz somehow manage to reach Pittsburgh in one piece.)
I took this course after watching McWhorter's "Language Families of the World" followed by reading McWhorter's "What Language Is (and What it Isn't, and What it Could Be) and that added depth to the course materials.
So, this was indeed a great Great Course. Heck, at this point I'd sign for "McWhorter Reads from the Phone Book" without blinking. (I expect he'd start with a little riff on his memory of phone books from his childhood. Then I'd love to hear him explain why the name "McWhorter" shifts along the Pennsylvania Turnpike from "mick wudder" as youse drive up in to Philadelphia morphing into something like "mac'whhhorther" when y'all reach Lancaster and finally landing in a unrecognizable heap of "mahk wordah" if yinz somehow manage to reach Pittsburgh in one piece.)
September 13, 2022
A Review of the Audiobook
Originally Published by The Great Courses in 2012.
This version published by The Great Courses in 2013.
Read by the author, John McWhorter.
Unabridged.
Linguist John McWhorter takes a look at the history of the English language in this 24 lecture presentation. He includes the origins of some of our more unique features and also the origins of some of our "rules" that aren't really rules at all.
McWhorter takes a long view, going all of the way back to English's roots in proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European language from the Caucus mountains region that spread all over the place and eventually became lots and lots of modern languages, including English.
For me, the most interesting theory was based on English's relative lack of verb endings. If you have ever studied Spanish, like me, than you remember the endless verb charts and verb endings. The same goes with French and German. Why doesn't English have all of those endings? We used to, but they disappeared - perhaps thanks to the Vikings!
The first half of this audiobook was an absolute joy to listen to. It was interesting and presented well - 5 stars. However, somewhere in the middle, the lectures became less interesting and somewhat repetitive - sometimes it became . It would have been better to have tightened up a few of the presentations and cut down the 24 lectures to 18 or 20 very lean and effective lectures.
So, the final result is 4 stars out of 5.
Originally Published by The Great Courses in 2012.
This version published by The Great Courses in 2013.
Read by the author, John McWhorter.
Unabridged.
Linguist John McWhorter takes a look at the history of the English language in this 24 lecture presentation. He includes the origins of some of our more unique features and also the origins of some of our "rules" that aren't really rules at all.
McWhorter takes a long view, going all of the way back to English's roots in proto-Indo-European. Proto-Indo-European language from the Caucus mountains region that spread all over the place and eventually became lots and lots of modern languages, including English.
For me, the most interesting theory was based on English's relative lack of verb endings. If you have ever studied Spanish, like me, than you remember the endless verb charts and verb endings. The same goes with French and German. Why doesn't English have all of those endings? We used to, but they disappeared - perhaps thanks to the Vikings!
The first half of this audiobook was an absolute joy to listen to. It was interesting and presented well - 5 stars. However, somewhere in the middle, the lectures became less interesting and somewhat repetitive - sometimes it became . It would have been better to have tightened up a few of the presentations and cut down the 24 lectures to 18 or 20 very lean and effective lectures.
So, the final result is 4 stars out of 5.
April 14, 2023
Had to quit at about 60% because I found myself muttering, "Stop trying to do stand-up and get ON with it already." I had high hopes after watching McWhorer's Language A to Z that maybe he'd matured a bit from his earlier Great Course. Nope. Still, I'm counting this as finished so I have something to show for my time other than a clenched jaw.
Look, the guy obviously is very knowledgable. When he sticks to explaining linguistics, he's OK. Or, rather, he's OK for a while, because he can't seem to go more than five minutes without saying something slightly condescending or backhanded about other cultures or doing a cartoonish impersonation of how he perceives the accent of the people who speak the language under discussion. (He probably should stay out of the UK after filming this, especially Cornwall and Scotland.) The bigger problem is that he doesn't stay on topic. He veers off into talking about how he likes PT Cruisers and playing his father at Monopoly (in what was supposed to be an analogy to language that never landed), or his intestinal distress after eating too many cherries. Bad enough he goes off on these tangents once, but he returns to them several times, as if we're supposed to be entranced by this self-absorbed rambling.
Really, I just wanted to tape his mouth shut after a few hours of it.
Look, the guy obviously is very knowledgable. When he sticks to explaining linguistics, he's OK. Or, rather, he's OK for a while, because he can't seem to go more than five minutes without saying something slightly condescending or backhanded about other cultures or doing a cartoonish impersonation of how he perceives the accent of the people who speak the language under discussion. (He probably should stay out of the UK after filming this, especially Cornwall and Scotland.) The bigger problem is that he doesn't stay on topic. He veers off into talking about how he likes PT Cruisers and playing his father at Monopoly (in what was supposed to be an analogy to language that never landed), or his intestinal distress after eating too many cherries. Bad enough he goes off on these tangents once, but he returns to them several times, as if we're supposed to be entranced by this self-absorbed rambling.
Really, I just wanted to tape his mouth shut after a few hours of it.
September 7, 2020
1. Alarm over decay
a. Descriptive Fashion vs. prescriptive logic
b. Pleats, slang
c. English is a constant transformation of structured chaotic trippiness
2. Old English
a. Oddness is a family trait
b. English is a constant breakdown of what was once more complex
3. Not Exactly Ango-Saxon
a. Old was a hybrid language in AD 500
b. Old English was much more like Frisian than Saxon
c. Genes of England have a Frisian imprint
d. Historical account Saxons and Frisians
e. At the beginning of English, Saxon and Frissian were mixing.
f. Old English was all about
g. Cacuasus Pea = chock
h. Old English was never on language
4. Don't forget the Celtic
a. Obsessive progressive, no do in other languages spoken
5. Exoteric Lingua Franca - streamlined user friendly language - traces to boiled down romance language spoken especially by sailor around the Mediterranean. Very little grammar.
6. ?
7. Vikings
a. English is Germanic Jr. brought over by the vikings
8. ?
a. Apple - appler, Maple, mapler
b. Slaves learned English as adults. Black English is not African language.
c. Lord, loaves. Lady, kneader.
d. Not bad grammar, just different
9. 12
a. Mistakes are precious because they show you how people actually talked.
b. Cuck comes from Cuckoo, bird that laid its eggs in other birds nests.
c. Dafters, drench your children to drink
d. An otch
e. Notch
f. Ellen - nellie
g. About - at by out
h. Edward - Ned
i. Youth from youngth
j. Mirth merrieth
k. Wealth - weal
l. It is inherent in language to change in ways that are skewomorphic rather than logical. Corpses added with life.
10. 13
a. Double negatives are logical around the world.
b. Disembodied semantic logic
c. There were water and mud on the table
d. It is inherent for language to not make sense in the ways in which we think it should.
11. 14
a. Walks has no equivalent verb conjugation in all 6000 languages
b. Highly arbitrary, highly imperfect, highly illogical.
c. Our concern should be with clarity rather than logic.
d. No principle. Fowler. Green vs. Red.'
12. 17
a. Urgative - important for using other langauge
13. 18
a. Will = marker of hypotheticality - not a marker of future tense
b. Frying up some eggs - completive marker
Oxford companion to language
Texting is informal writing.
a. Descriptive Fashion vs. prescriptive logic
b. Pleats, slang
c. English is a constant transformation of structured chaotic trippiness
2. Old English
a. Oddness is a family trait
b. English is a constant breakdown of what was once more complex
3. Not Exactly Ango-Saxon
a. Old was a hybrid language in AD 500
b. Old English was much more like Frisian than Saxon
c. Genes of England have a Frisian imprint
d. Historical account Saxons and Frisians
e. At the beginning of English, Saxon and Frissian were mixing.
f. Old English was all about
g. Cacuasus Pea = chock
h. Old English was never on language
4. Don't forget the Celtic
a. Obsessive progressive, no do in other languages spoken
5. Exoteric Lingua Franca - streamlined user friendly language - traces to boiled down romance language spoken especially by sailor around the Mediterranean. Very little grammar.
6. ?
7. Vikings
a. English is Germanic Jr. brought over by the vikings
8. ?
a. Apple - appler, Maple, mapler
b. Slaves learned English as adults. Black English is not African language.
c. Lord, loaves. Lady, kneader.
d. Not bad grammar, just different
9. 12
a. Mistakes are precious because they show you how people actually talked.
b. Cuck comes from Cuckoo, bird that laid its eggs in other birds nests.
c. Dafters, drench your children to drink
d. An otch
e. Notch
f. Ellen - nellie
g. About - at by out
h. Edward - Ned
i. Youth from youngth
j. Mirth merrieth
k. Wealth - weal
l. It is inherent in language to change in ways that are skewomorphic rather than logical. Corpses added with life.
10. 13
a. Double negatives are logical around the world.
b. Disembodied semantic logic
c. There were water and mud on the table
d. It is inherent for language to not make sense in the ways in which we think it should.
11. 14
a. Walks has no equivalent verb conjugation in all 6000 languages
b. Highly arbitrary, highly imperfect, highly illogical.
c. Our concern should be with clarity rather than logic.
d. No principle. Fowler. Green vs. Red.'
12. 17
a. Urgative - important for using other langauge
13. 18
a. Will = marker of hypotheticality - not a marker of future tense
b. Frying up some eggs - completive marker
Oxford companion to language
Texting is informal writing.
March 3, 2021
Another excellent book by John McWhorter. This one concentration on the English language, past, present and future.
Here are some of my notes:
So apparently the Angles, Saxons and Jutes weren't the first Germanic people to cross over to England. At that time there were settlements of Frisians already living in the Southeast. I had no idea. Although now that I think about it it makes sense since English is in fact closer to Frisian than any of the other low German dialects.
He mentions an Italian dialect called "Monese" which I cannot for the life of me find any trace of. If anyone knows where this could be from please let me know. The closest I could get would be Cremonese (maybe Creo-Monese and drop the Creo?) or possibly a dialect from Monno, although that would be the dialetto Camuno (a type of Lombard) I guess.
You shouldn't say "Ain't I" if you're educated. But you shouldn't say "Amn't I", so what do you say? "Aren't I?". Except that is non-sensical (Are not I?)
I want to read more about Robert Lowthe and William Cobbett, and their prescriptive recommendations for English usage.
Here are some of my notes:
So apparently the Angles, Saxons and Jutes weren't the first Germanic people to cross over to England. At that time there were settlements of Frisians already living in the Southeast. I had no idea. Although now that I think about it it makes sense since English is in fact closer to Frisian than any of the other low German dialects.
He mentions an Italian dialect called "Monese" which I cannot for the life of me find any trace of. If anyone knows where this could be from please let me know. The closest I could get would be Cremonese (maybe Creo-Monese and drop the Creo?) or possibly a dialect from Monno, although that would be the dialetto Camuno (a type of Lombard) I guess.
You shouldn't say "Ain't I" if you're educated. But you shouldn't say "Amn't I", so what do you say? "Aren't I?". Except that is non-sensical (Are not I?)
I want to read more about Robert Lowthe and William Cobbett, and their prescriptive recommendations for English usage.
April 10, 2018
This is a great listen. I think the first few lectures were my favourite because it's a perfect blend of history, science and linguistics and I discovered so much in such a short time. The rest of it is more concerned with our fixation on english somehow decaying and how wrong that assumption is. Interesting elements how grammar obsessives derive from one author who (incorrectly) believed English grammar had to be made more latin and how "daughter" used to rhyme with "laughter". The discussion that text/email was the missing "informal writing" from english language was a different way of looking at the medium too. McWhorter is a natural lecturer/teacher with an ability to talk intelligently but never patronising and peppers with enough fun asides to keep the listener hooked.
That's two great lecture series by him - need to find some more material that doesn't overlap.
That's two great lecture series by him - need to find some more material that doesn't overlap.
March 30, 2022
This book was an audio college lecture series on language evolution focusing in on English as we know it. I am Currently working on language revitalization in my tribe. I found this book empowering as I learned how all languages change. I learned that just because the way we write something is one way doesn't mean that is how we are supposed to speak it. Often language changes verbally before its written. The changing of a language doesn't make it wrong or bad contrary to popular belief. This is exciting for my work with language revitalization as it is along to just process which we have made mistakes and fix them along the way. What it taught me is it's more important to speak and obviously I should try to speak as accurately as possible however if there are small mistakes that are made that's how languages evolve.
October 10, 2023
Here I am in my 50s, for the first time really trying hard to learn a 2nd language. My years of high school French proved to be of no use and forgotten by the end of my last class. Knowing this about me, a good friend made this recommendation. It proved to be another good one. You'd think a few lectures on the history of language, with a focus on English, would be dull. By anybody else it probably would be. For a linguist McWhorter is actually kind of funny and you can tell he loves teaching. Do stick with it. Perhaps a bit slow in the early lectures. I found the last third quite a bit more interesting than the earlier parts. In these later chapters he's covering how English in the last several decades has been trending to the less formal. Then finally his opinions on how the internet and texting is affecting language. The short answer: language is doing just fine.
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