“Standard English is a convenient abstraction, like the average man.” — George Leslie Brook Copy Share Image
People think of black English as ungrammatical, but it bears the same relationship to standard English as contemporary Hebrew does to ancient… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
“When we black people commit ourselves to living simply as a political action, as a way of breaking the stress caused by… — bell hooks Copy Share Image
You could imagine a language exactly like English except it doesn't have connectives like 'and' that allow you to make longer expressions.… — Noam Chomsky Copy Share Image
I make the case in the book that Standard English, that language we all aspire to live and move and have our… — Kory Stamper Copy Share Image
“The range and variety of Chaucer's English did much to establish English as a national language. Chaucer also contributed much to the… — Ronald Carter Copy Share Image
Because of the way our society is structures, using sentences such as "I don't it" can put people at a disadvantage. And… — Kate Burridge Copy Share Image
A lot of time, I'd spell things in standard English instead of phonetically because I want people to understand what's going on.… — Marlon James Copy Share Image
“Jung told the Society that apparitions (ghosts) and materializations were “unconscious projections” or, as he spoke of them to Freud, “exteriorisations.” “I… — Gary Valentine Lachman Copy Share Image
Translation rewrites a foreign text in terms that are intelligible and interesting to readers in the receiving culture. Doing so is akin… — Lawrence Venuti Copy Share Image
I tried to write 'Trainspotting' in standard English, but people weren't talking like that. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
If we are serious about enabling those who want to acquire what we have called standard English then first we should be… — Michael Rosen Copy Share Image
Spell-check ruins my work. It fixes all my slang and dialect into standard English. So I'm caught in a tangle of technology… — Ntozake Shange Copy Share Image
That mainstream English is essential to our self-preservation is indisputable . . . but it is not necessary to abandon Spoken Soul… — John R. Rickford Copy Share Image
Black English is simpler than standard English in some ways; for example, it often gets by with just 'be' and drops 'am,'… — John McWhorter Copy Share Image
Where shall we look for standard English, but to the words of a standard man? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it. — Irvine Welsh Copy Share Image
Once, BBC television had echoed BBC radio in being a haven for standard English pronunciation. Then regional accents came in: a democratic… — Clive James Copy Share Image
“Ebonics is not a separate language. It is ghetto speech and substandard English. To claim that ebonics is a positive way of… — Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Copy Share Image
“A truly enlightened attitude to language should simply be to let six thousand or more flowers bloom. Subcultures should be allowed to… — Robert Lane Greene Copy Share Image
This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in… — William Labov Copy Share Image
I've come across a novel called The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, that is really remarkable because it is… — William Golding Copy Share Image
“Individuals who speak languages other than English, who speak patois as well as standard English, find it a necessary aspect of self-affirmation… — Bell Hooks Copy Share Image
“Standard English as it is presented by grammarians and pedants is a dialect that is based on a mostly fictional, static, and… — Kory Stamper Copy Share Image
