The soundtrack of the American dream is English. Linguistic diversity is all good, but it doesn’t pay the rent for struggling immigrants. English fluency makes sense, as in dollars and cents. Assimilation adds up and language is the cultural key. And the more remote the language, A new study suggests that assimilation is a matter […]

“G” is in a sensitive spot when it comes to the English language. Finding that “g” can reveal the hidden truth behind social status and aspirations of the women of Pennsylvania. Recent research by Susan Evans Wagner, an MSU researcher, suggests that those accents are actually a sort of self-imposed prerequisite for ambitious students eager […]

It used to be that all you needed to have a language was an army. Monopolies of violence and linguistic autonomy have always gone together like chocolate and peanut butter. Dialect is the consolation prize for losers. But in the digital age, it takes more than artillery to keep a language alive, according to a […]

New Mexico prison officials claim this Nahuatl note marks the birth of a new gang linked to 30 prisoners in New Mexico State Penitentiary. They say that Nahuatl, the ancient language of the Aztec empire, is being used by gang-bangers to forge a new Aztec-like order, controlled from within the walls of New Mexico’s prisons. […]

Keep it simple, stupid. In my last post, I reported on the new sophomoric lows in the level of language used by the US Congress, as revealed by a Flesch-Kincaid reading ease test of the Congressional record. For blogging bottom-feeders like me, trashing Congress is an easy play for more readers, as sure-fire as baby […]

English has been the language of the skies since international commercial aviation first spread its wings after World War II. Since English-speaking countries dominated post-war flyways, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) agreed in 1944 to mandate English as the standard language for international flights. In the air, clear communication is even more important than […]

As a Mother’s Day treat, my wife and I made Izzi, our 17-year-old, watch Taxi Driver (1976), Martin Scorsese’ dark masterpiece set on the mean and nasty streets of ‘70s NYC. This was our misguided attempt to show Izzi, my enriched little East Sider, the city we once knew and loved, back when you could […]

“On to Z” was Fred Cassidy’s tag-line. 50 years ago the American Dialect Society appointed him editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). Now Volume V (Sl to Z), the final volume in the initial series, has been completed. The DARE Project was an ambitious effort to document the local words and phrases […]