Language Myths

Peter Trudgill and Laurie Bauer are both respected linguists. Trudgill has written many books for Penguin (including Sociolinguistics which has sold 130,000 copies since it was first published in 1974). Other contributors include Jean Aitchison (Professor of Language at Oxford), Lars Gunnar-Andersson (co-author of Bad Language with Trudgill) and Janet Holmes (Women, Men and Politeness, 1995, Longman). Peter Trudgill lives in Lausanne (and sometimes Norwich.) Laurie Bauer lives in New Zealand.

• A Note on the ContributorsIntroductionMyth 1: The Meanings of Words Should Not be Allowed to Vary or Change: Peter TrudgillMyth 2: Some Languages Are Just Not Good Enough: Ray HarlowMyth 3: The Media Are Ruining English: Jean AitchisonMyth 4: French is a Logical Language: Anthony LodgeMyth 5: English Spelling is Kattastroffik: Edward CarneyMyth 6: Women Talk Too Much: Janet HolmesMyth 7: Some Languages Are Harder than Others: Lars-Gunnar AnderssonMyth 8: Children Can't Speak or Write Properly Any More: James MilroyMyth 9: In the Appalachians They Speak like Shakespeare: Michael MontgomeryMyth 10: Some Languages Have No Grammar: Winifred BauerMyth 11: Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly: Howard Giles and Nancy NiedzielskiMyth 12: Bad Grammar is Slovenly: Leslie MilroyMyth 13: Black Children are Verbally Deprived: Walt WolframMyth 14: Double Negatives Are Illogical: Jenny CheshireMyth 15: TV Makes People Sound the Same: J. K. ChambersMyth 16: You Shouldn't Say "It Is Me" because "Me" is Accusative: Laurie BauerMyth 17: They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City: Dennis R. PrestonMyth 18: Some Languages Are Spoken More Quickly than Others: Peter RoachMyth 19: Aborigines Speak a Primitive Lanugage: Nicholas EvansMyth 20: Everyone Has an Accent Except Me: John H. EslingMyth 21: America is Ruining the English Language: John AlgeoIndex