Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care

“McWhorter is a gifted young linguist who seeks to understand the change in our verbal habits rather than just bemoan it, and his analysis is insightful, richly documented and, yes, eloquently written.”—Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate and The Language Instinct

In Doing Our Own Thing, critically acclaimed linguist and cultural critic John McWhorter traces the precipitous decline of language in contemporary America, arguing persuasively that casual everyday speech has conquered the f...