Contents

A Note on the Contributors

Introduction

   MYTH 1  The Meanings of Words Should Not be Allowed to Vary or Change
Peter Trudgill

   MYTH 2  Some Languages are Just Not Good Enough
Ray Harlow

   MYTH 3  The Media are Ruining English
Jean Aitchison

   MYTH 4  French is a Logical Language
Anthony Lodge

   MYTH 5  English Spelling is Kattastroffik
Edward Carney

   MYTH 6  Women Talk Too Much
Janet Holmes

   MYTH 7  Some Languages are Harder than Others
Lars-Gunnar Andersson

   MYTH 8  Children Can’t Speak or Write Properly Any More
James Milroy

   MYTH 9  In the Appalachians They Speak like Shakespeare
Michael Montgomery

MYTH 10  Some Languages Have No Grammar
Winifred Bauer

MYTH 11  Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly
Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski

MYTH 12  Bad Grammar is Slovenly
Lesley Milroy

MYTH 13  Black Children are Verbally Deprived
Walt Wolfram

MYTH 14  Double Negatives are Illogical
Jenny Cheshire

MYTH 15  TV Makes People Sound the Same
J. K. Chambers

MYTH 16  You Shouldn’t Say ‘It is Me’ because ‘Me’ is Accusative
Laurie Bauer

MYTH 17  They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City
Dennis R. Preston

MYTH 18  Some Languages are Spoken More Quickly than Others
Peter Roach

MYTH 19  Aborigines Speak a Primitive Language
Nicholas Evans

MYTH 20  Everyone Has an Accent Except Me
John H. Esling

MYTH 21  America is Ruining the English Language
John Algeo

Index