David Brooks has been impressed by a stream of studies purporting to illustrate his ongoing thesis about community breakdown in America. These studies chart changes in word use by English writers over centuries, and their theme is, just as we are what we eat, we are what we say. READ MORE >>
The sentence scrawled above was Winston Churchill’s alleged response to the idea that one can’t end a sentence with a preposition, giving this fake grammar rule a particular distinction: Its legendary smackdown is as well known as the rule itself. READ MORE >>
Proof that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Had Assimilated? He Spoke Black
Black English, the most American part of our language
“A decade in America already, I want out.” This tweet of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s has helped fuel speculations that what drove him to mass murder was that America had failed to assimilate him thoroughly enough. READ MORE >>
As natural as it may feel to pop out with sentences like the one above, we know it’s wrong. We know that they and their are plural, so they can’t possibly refer back to each student, which is singular. READ MORE >>
Last week the Associated Press removed the term illegal immigrant from its stylebook. This followed claims, aired with especial insistence since last year, that the term is a disguised slur, designating certain persons as “illegal” in neglect of all else that comprises their personhood. READ MORE >>
Our times can lend ordinary words new shadings. It used to be that one thought of a fossil embedded in rock, but especially since the Iraq War, embed calls most immediately to mind a reporter covering military activity. In the same way, evolution these days is no longer about Darwin and finch beaks. Rather, the public figure opting to espouse a previously controversial position now tells us that their views have "evolved." It is, in truth, a weaselly business. READ MORE >>
Speaking Your Mind
The pernicious persistence of the "language shapes thought" theory
Did you know that thinking in Korean makes you process life differently than thinking in English? READ MORE >>
What Are President Obama’s Black Critics Talking About?
The idea that Barack Obama has let black America down can be sonorous, as attested to by a recent article by Columbia’s Frederick Harris in the New York Times and Cornel West’s long-established critique of the President. It is also backwards. READ MORE >>
The Perpetual Failure to Understand Obama's Double Consciousness
The recent uproar over President Obama’s 2007 speech to black pastors is yet another example of how white people—or at least some of them—don't get it about black people. READ MORE >>
