Language Myths

Table Of Contents

A Note on the Contributors

Introduction

Myth 1: The Meanings of Words Should Not be Allowed to Vary or Change: Peter Trudgill
Myth 2: Some Languages Are Just Not Good Enough: Ray Harlow
Myth 3: The Media Are Ruining English: Jean Aitchison
Myth 4: French is a Logical Language: Anthony Lodge
Myth 5: English Spelling is Kattastroffik: Edward Carney
Myth 6: Women Talk Too Much: Janet Holmes
Myth 7: Some Languages Are Harder than Others: Lars-Gunnar Andersson
Myth 8: Children Can’t Speak or Write Properly Any More: James Milroy
Myth 9: In the Appalachians They Speak like Shakespeare: Michael Montgomery
Myth 10: Some Languages Have No Grammar: Winifred Bauer
Myth 11: Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly: Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski
Myth 12: Bad Grammar is Slovenly: Leslie Milroy
Myth 13: Black Children are Verbally Deprived: Walt Wolfram
Myth 14: Double Negatives Are Illogical: Jenny Cheshire
Myth 15: TV Makes People Sound the Same: J. K. Chambers
Myth 16: You Shouldn’t Say “It Is Me” because “Me” is Accusative: Laurie Bauer
Myth 17: They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City: Dennis R. Preston
Myth 18: Some Languages Are Spoken More Quickly than Others: Peter Roach
Myth 19: Aborigines Speak a Primitive Lanugage: Nicholas Evans
Myth 20: Everyone Has an Accent Except Me: John H. Esling
Myth 21: America is Ruining the English Language: John Algeo

Index