You Talkin' To Me?: The Unruly History of New York English

by E.J. White

From paddy wagon to rush hour, New York City has given us a number of our popular words and phrases, along the way fashioning a recognizable dialect all its own. Often imitated and just as often ridiculed, New York English has its own identity, imbued with the rich cultural history of (as New Yorkers tell it) the greatest city in the world. How did this unique language community develop, and how has it shaped the city as we know it today?

In You Talkin' to Me?, E.J. White explores the hidden history of English in New York City -- a history that encompasses social class, immigration, culture, economics, and, of course, real estate. She tells entertaining stories of New York's most famous characters, streets, and cultural institutions, from Broadway to the newspaper office to the department store, illuminating a new dimension of the city's landscape. Full of little-known facts -- C-3PO was originally written to have a New York accent; West Side Story was originally going to be East Side Story, about Jewish and Christian New Yorkers; and "confidence man" started in reference to a specific New York City criminal --the book will delight lovers of language and history alike.

The history of English in New York is deeply intertwined with the story of a famous city trying to develop its own identity. White's account engages issues of class and social difference; the invisible barriers that separate insiders from outsiders; the war between children who fit in and their parents who do not; and the struggle of being both an immigrant to the city and a New Yorker. Following language from The Bowery to The Bronx, You Talkin' to Me? offers a fascinating account of how language moves and changes-and a new way of understanding the language history, not only of New York, but of the United States.

Genres: Language, History, Nonfiction, Linguistics, New York

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Craigtator · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ain’t nuttin’ wrong wit’ tawkin’ like dis.

[Miranda]

The first chapter of this book was so validating! It brought back memories of communication challenges and misunderstandings, particularly when I went to a college in the south and married into a southern family. We may have all been using English, but we were speaking very different languages. I wish I’d had a way to articulate these things to my friends.

[Chris McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a cool book; despite being titled as a history of the New York accent, it was an undercover history of the city itself. In talking about the accent, White talked about the demographics and the social culture of the city. This book was a quick read, lots of fun. Recommended.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A linguist's analysis of the New York accent, speech patterns, and mannerisms, the history of the midwestern rhotic accent becoming the defacto "American accent," and the biases that we hold about the New York accent. This is a well researched, well presented book that I had a hard time putting down.

[Peter Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You Talkin’ to Me?: the unruly history of New York English,” by E. J. White (Oxford, 2020). Dis shuah takes me back to my yout’, when friends at the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan, would ask me to say something. They’d never met a person from Brooklyn before. (They also cured me of the New York glottal stop.) Anyway, White teaches the history of the English language at Stony Brook University. It’s fascinating. He digs into the way we speak, using all the tools of academia and pop culture, from “Mapping Lexical Spread in American English,” presented at the American Society of Dialect annual meeting in 2015, to Snoop Dogg and the Notorious B.I.G. There is so much in this short volume (296 pages including index) that I don’t dare go into much detail. Why is the accepted standard American speech Midwestern, and not from the most important city in the country? Good American used to be the way FDR spoke; not any more. Today the New York accent is generally derided in the USA, something to be lost if you want to get anywhere. But he says, not so: he traces its richness from the Dutch up past Lin Manuel Miranda. He talks about how speakers switch codes, changing accent, stresses, every nuance of the spoken word depending on to whom they are speaking and where. This explains why I change the way I speak depending on the audience, and whether I am in a hurry or being deliberate. He talks about the nature of New York conversation, where interrupting and talking over one another are normal, where everyone speaks loudly, etc. etc. He talks about the surprising sophistication of hip hop. I learned about rhoticity (the “r” that comes and goes). And now I know what the schwa is: that syllable in words that disappears, like the second syllable in “woman” or “buses.” It’s the most common vowel sound in English! As we say around here, “who knew?”

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[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a New Yorker, I loved the whole characterization of New Yorkers and their speech. It was interesting to identify the three most noticeable features of New York City English (the vowels in talk and bad and the final sound in water -- the missing "r"), but I wish there were some way to link to a sound recording because I wasn't sure what she was hearing for bad and Harold and some other words.

The book dragged for a bit with NY place names, but her explanation of Puerto Rican English, African American Vernacular English ("the tense system of AAVE shows greater complexity than Standard American English ... with five present tenses....), and the anti-immigrant and race and class bias of public school curricula was informative. I enjoyed the department story study, and the last sentence of the epilogue was choice.

[Chris]

For enthusiastics of linguistics, etymology, and New York City.

The book has fabulous footnotes. The audiobook reading by Jo Anna Perrin is perfect.

"It was in New York that I learned to tell people to fuck off, and I think I'm a better person for it. From what I have seen, New Yorkers are connoisseurs of the word italic text: fuck. They use it as an obscenity, as an insult, as a qualifier, as a term of respect, as an adverb, as an interjection, as a method of asserting personal space, or simply as punctuation."

[Stephen Watt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book certainly started out as a 5 star title, and at a couple other points almost redeemed itself; however it suffers from serious mission creep as a linguistic retrospective. More often than not, the book serves as a general cultural history of modern New York, with language as a loose unifying thread. For me, at least, that was a disappointment because there's already a million books like that. If you're hoping for something like Bill Bryson's Made in America at the city scale, this one is NOT really for you...

[Ocean G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more a history of New York's people and names, which obviously goes hand-in-hand with New York English. I do wish, however, that it had been more of a progressive journey through how New Yorkers spoke throughout the centuries.

Still, some very interesting tidbits. Especially the differences between how men and women talk. And how New Yorkers have stubbornly been clinging to their non-rhoticity, while it has gone away in so many other places.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book despite the fact that the author is not a native New Yorker. She is, however, a long-time resident with a good ear for the New York dialect. There's a lot in the beginning of the book on pronunciation which, at times, drags, but stick with it, it does maintain your interest.

Also, be sure to check out the documentary referenced in the book, If These Knishes Could Talk. A must see while reading this book.

[Nigel Ewan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of this are very interesting, particularly the beginning and the end, but he middle of the book meanders and veers too far from the subject matter. Worse, it's sprinkled throughout with the insecure and condescending left-wing brain rot you might expect in modern-day linguistics.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so much fun for me.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot about New York vernacular, especially enjoyed the last chapter regarding the department store linguistic studies... Interesting book :)

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some chapters I found more engaging than others, but there’s a lot of very fun stuff in here.

[Adam Cherson]

Somewhat technical at first (for linguists), the book unfolds into an interesting socio-linguistic monograph, including many amusing pieces of trivia.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty Interesting… never thought that much about linguistics before… warning for people who don’t like data - this book has lots of data and informational references!

[Redemption 87 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learned a lot about myself and why I pronoun the word coffee,"cawfee." Makes a lot more sense to me now. And, understand my right language heritage being born and raised in NYC.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting things about the accent and how it is perceived in the opening, but the book was a bit more broad ranging than the title implied.

[liz.nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was a really good book. great deep dive into why NYC english didn't become the american standard. my only nitpick is that some of the research cited in chapters 1 and 7 i'd already seen in a few other books, but overall, a great read.