Do You Speak American?: A Companion To The PBS Television Series - Hardcover

MacNeil, Robert; Cran, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385511981 ISBN 13: 9780385511988

Publisher: Nan a Talese, 2004

Synopsis

In a companion volume to the PBS series, the authors of The Story of English offer a witty and insightful look at the origins, history, and current state of American spoken and written language, looking at the linguistic quirks and traditions that exist in diverse regions of the country and assessing the influence of e-mail, ethnic boundaries, and other factors on the language. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

PRAISE FOR "THE STORY OF ENGLISH"
"Highly enjoyable . . . A first-rate introduction to one of the most fascinating of subjects."--"The New York Times"
"Rarely has the English language been scanned so brightly and broadly in a single volume."--"San Francisco Chronicle"
PRAISE FOR"THE STORY OF ENGLISH"

"Highly enjoyable . . . A first-rate introduction to one of the most fascinating of subjects."--"The New York Times"

"Rarely has the English language been scanned so brightly and broadly in a single volume."--"San Francisco Chronicle"
PRAISE FOR "THE STORY OF ENGLISH"

"Highly enjoyable . . . A first-rate introduction to one of the most fascinating of subjects."--"The New York Times"

"Rarely has the English language been scanned so brightly and broadly in a single volume."--"San Francisco Chronicle"
PRAISE FOR THE STORY OF ENGLISH
"Highly enjoyable . . . A first-rate introduction to one of the most fascinating of subjects."--The New York Times
"Rarely has the English language been scanned so brightly and broadly in a single volume."--San Francisco Chronicle
PRAISE FOR THE STORY OF ENGLISH

"Highly enjoyable . . . A first-rate introduction to one of the most fascinating of subjects."--The New York Times

"Rarely has the English language been scanned so brightly and broadly in a single volume."--San Francisco Chronicle

From the Back Cover:

Is the growing influence of Spanish threatening to displace English in the United States? Are America's grammatical standards in serious decline? Has the media saturation of our culture homogenized our speech? These and other questions about American English catapulted Robert MacNeil and William Cran, authors (with Robert McCrum) of the language classic The Story of English, on a cross-country journey in search of answers. A fascinating follow-up to The Story of English, Do You Speak American? is the tale of the surprising discoveries they made along the way.
Did you know:
*Southern speech is now the largest accent group in the United States.
*Valley Girl and Surfer Dude dialects are becoming more influential across the world.
*Black Americans and white Americans speak less like each other today than they did two and three generations ago.
*Spanglish, Chicano English, and Chicano Spanish are three distinct and thriving American dialects.
*Women adopt new pronunciations and speech styles more quickly than men.
*People react to synthetic computerized voices in the same way they react to real human voices.
*A milkshake is called a frappe in Massachusetts.
Robert MacNeil and William Cran are the coauthors of The Story of English (with Robert McCrum). The coanchor of PBS's The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour until his retirement in 1995, Robert MacNeil is also the author of two volumes of memoir and three novels, including, most recently, Breaking News. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Nan a Talese
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0385511981
• ISBN 13: 9780385511988
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 228