Do You Speak American?Robert MacNeil Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, known sometimes as Robin, (born January 19, 1931) is currently a novelist and formerly was a television news anchor and journalist who had paired with Jim Lehrer to create The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975. and William Cran. Do You Speak American? New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of : Doubleday, 2005. Is American English in decline? Are regional dialects dying out? Is there a difference in how men and women adapt to linguistic variations? These and other questions about American English motivated Robert MacNeil--past co-host of PBS's The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour--and William Cran to canvass the country in search of the answers. This book (the title comes from a comment by Bono, lead singer of U2, after being fined by the FCC (1) (Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC, www.fcc.gov) The U.S. government agency that regulates interstate and international communications including wire, cable, radio, TV and satellite. The FCC was created under the U.S. for swearing) is the result of their explorations and it clearly shows that our language is in a state of flux Noun 1. state of flux - a state of uncertainty about what should be done (usually following some important event) preceding the establishment of a new direction of action; "the flux following the death of the emperor" flux . As a resident of the Big Apple, I was unhappy to learn from this book that when asked to choose two areas where bad or unacceptable English is spoken, nine times out of ten people will say New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. and the South. But I was pleased to discover that "descriptive linguistics" (a willingness to be guided by how people actually speak or write) appears to be making headway against "prescriptive linguistics" (a desire to have language obey strict rules). The war between these two philosophies has been particularly strident in recent times and arguments over which one should prevail has become a factor in America's "culture wars." In 1981, former Senator (and former ETC ETC - ExTendible Compiler. Fortran-like, macro extendible. "ETC - An Extendible Macro-Based Compiler", B.N. Dickman, Proc SJCC 38 (1971). editor) S.I. Hayakawa introduced the English Language Amendment to the U.S. constitution and helped found the organization U.S. English, to promote it nationally. He wrote, "In order for us to cooperate most fully with our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and fellow citizens, we must not only have a language; we must have a common language. If we do not, our future holds a terrifying ter·ri·fy tr.v. ter·ri·fied, ter·ri·fy·ing, ter·ri·fies 1. To fill with terror; make deeply afraid. See Synonyms at frighten. 2. To menace or threaten; intimidate. potential for conflict." MacNeil and Cran note that The English Language Amendment, although frequently reintroduced, has gone nowhere. For a variety of reasons, American English has become the world's most influential language. But many are predicting that by the middle of the twenty-first century the weight of numbers and economic power will make Chinese the dominant language. If that becomes the case then, perhaps, in 2050, Do You Speak Chinese? will be reviewed in these pages. REVIEW BY MARTIN H. LEVINSON, PHD |
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