13
A Procession of Accidents and Fossils
Lecture no. 13 from the course: Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths of Language Usage
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Taught by Professor John McWhorter | 30 min
Roll up your sleeves for some language archaeology, tracing the origin of seemingly nonsensical features in English that once had a function. An example: the initial N in the nicknames Ned and Nan is the fossil of mine, the archaic form of my, as in “mine Ed.”...
24 Lectures
1
Alarm over the Decay of English
0
of 31 min
2
Surprises in the Ancestry of Old English
0
of 30 min
3
Not Exactly Anglo-Saxon
0
of 30 min
4
Don't Forget the Celtic Connection
0
of 30 min
5
From Insider Language to Lingua Franca
0
of 30 min
6
English as Easy German
0
of 28 min
7
The Viking Conquest of English
0
of 27 min
8
How the Words of Modern English Emerged
0
of 31 min
9
Black English-The Streamlining Continues
0
of 29 min
10
Honored Conceits of Blackboard Grammar
0
of 31 min
11
Pronoun Fashions Come and Go
0
of 30 min
12
Wrong Then, Proper Now-and Vice Versa
0
of 29 min
13
A Procession of Accidents and Fossils
0
of 30 min
14
The Pursuit of Logic in Language
0
of 29 min
15
Clarity as the Logic of Language
0
of 30 min
16
20th-Century Fashions from Strunk & White
0
of 31 min
17
The Kinds of Grammar You Don't Hear About
0
of 30 min
18
Linguists Uncovering Grammar We All Use
0
of 31 min
19
Speech versus Writing-Different Languages
0
of 32 min
20
Speechmaking-From Oratory to Plain Speaking
0
of 33 min
21
The Old and New Styles of Writing
0
of 32 min
22
Got Poetry? Language with Spice
0
of 34 min
23
Why Texting Is Misunderstood
0
of 30 min
24
The Living Past and Future of English
0
of 34 min
