Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story Of English

Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Introduction One - WE SPEAK A MISCEGENATED GRAMMAR Two - A LESSON FROM THE CELTIC IMPACT Three - WE SPEAK A BATTERED GRAMMAR Four - DOES OUR GRAMMAR CHANNEL OUR THOUGHT? Five - SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET Notes on Sources Acknowledgements Index ALSO BY JOHN MCWHORTER TOWARDS A NEW MODEL OF CREOLE GENESIS THE MISSING SPANISH CREOLES: Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages WORD ON THE STREET: Debunking the Myth of a “Pure” Standard English SPREADING THE WORD: Language and Dialect in America LOSING THE RACE: Self-Sabotage in Black America THE POWER OF BABEL: A Natural History of Language AUTHENTICALLY BLACK: Essays for the Black Silent Majority DOING OUR OWN THING: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care DEFINING CREOLE WINNING THE RACE: Beyond the Crisis in Black America ALL ABOUT THE BEAT: Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save Black America GOTHAM BOOKS Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. · Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) · Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England · Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) · Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) · Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India · Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) · Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Published by Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. First printing, November 2008 Copyright © 2008 by John McWhorter All rights reserved Gotham Books and the skyscraper logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA McWhorter, John H. Our magnificent bastard tongue: the untold history of English / John McWhorter. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. eISBN : 978-1-440-60787-5 Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content. http://us.penguingroup.com Introduction Was it really all just about words? The Grand Old History of the English Language, I mean. The way it is traditionally told, the pathway from Old English to Modern English has been a matter of taking on a great big bunch of words. Oh, yeah: and shedding a bunch along the way. You may well know the saga