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

Not what you think, or at least not what I expected when I started. I expected this to be a more-or-less standard expression of the downward spiral of the English language due to the failures of our education system, the influence of television and music, and the influx of immigrants for whom English is at best a second language. McWhorter, a young African-American (I wasn't familiar with McWhorter before picking up this book, and I also wasn't expecting either until seeing the author's picture on the back flap) linguist, in fact does examine the decline of the quality of written English, but not as a result of these influences, which he labels as symptoms, not causes. Rather he points to the general cultural rebellion against authority and formality that occurred in the US in the mid 1960s as the source of the problem. Rejection of political authority and bureaucratic and organizational formality quickly spread to language and music. McWhorter's position is well-argued; he has not gone off half-cocked. He spends considerable time establishing that there have always been different standards between spoken English that American's used in casual speech and written language, which is easier to edit and subject to standards of grammar, vocabulary and precision. But he traces the trend of lowered expectations for written speech from, for example, Wilson's speeches in favor of the League of Nations, to Congressional speeches on December 8, 1941 in support of the declaration of war against Japan, to Congressional speeches on September 12, 2001, in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. His conclusions and predictions, now six years old and made just at the cusp of ubiquitous available-everywhere communication technology, have proved quite prescient. This is not a gloom-and-doom treatise predicting the sudden downfall of America or English at the hands of a Casual-speech horde, nor is it a rose-colored call for a return to a "simpler time" of oratorical stump speeches and ornate letter writing. Note: I have not read any of McWhorter's other books, but other reviewers here have praised his The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language as a superior book. I am not a linguist by trade, so I found this book quite interesting as it touches on uses of the language that are accessible to non-specialists like me and most readers. I would also reference Michael Adams' recent Slang: The People's Poetry (which I did read and review) as a companion to "Doing Our Own Thing" in its examination of the oral tradition of slang. "Doing Our Own thing" is also a good companion to Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music, a new book I read and reviewed recently, as McWhorter finds (six years before Wald and without reference by him!) the genetic marker of how the Beatles did the deed Wald claims for them in his mistitled book.

The previous reviewer casually accuses McWhorter of being a cultural elitist, and to some extent that is the case. However, if you actually read the book with an open mind, instead of coming to it with prejudices about cultural relativity, you'll find that McWhorter's arguments are much more subtle than they're presented in the previous review, which boils the two positions down to either appreciating the western canon or appreciating all art and language. Personally, I found this to be a decent read that gave me a decent amount to think about. I'd rate it a 3.5.

John McWhorter has long had a double identity. As a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, he's written on the evolution of languages over time (THE POWER OF BABEL) and on English dialectology (WORD ON THE STREET). But he's also a cultural commentator, until recently directing his attention to the issues facing African-Americans (LOSING THE RACE and AUTHENTICALLY BLACK). In DOING OUR OWN THING: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care he combines his two interests. McWhorter claims that there's indeed a real problem with the English that we hear today in the media and from our politics, and the English we read in popular literature. McWhorter, like all reputable linguists, will readily state that all languages are essentially equal in that they serve the basic needs of their bodies of speakers. His argument is not that English is going downhill in a way that is reducing people to unintelligent brutes who can't get their message across. No, McWhorter believes that the decline of oratorical skills and literary flair is simply depriving English-speaking culture of some beauty that people could enjoy. He pairs letters from grade-school dropouts of the 1800s with newspaper articles by professional journalists of today to show that, yes, in days of yore people used to appreciate the skill they could display in writing elegant prose, and everyone was capable of giving it a go. He puts the Gettysburg Address next to what a professional speechwriter prepared for President Bush to show that nowadays our politicians provide uninspiring and half-hearted explanations of their motivations and goals. English in the public sphere, McWhorter claims, is lame. McWhorter has no problem with people on the street talking like they are wont to. He notes that the civil engineer of a century ago who wrote a lovely letter to his sweetheart likely used much coarser language on the job with his construction men. But there should be a place for linguistic virtuosity. Great literature, which is the very exploitation of a language's possibilities, is today rarely encountered in the mainstream media. Poetry is replaced by the Spoken Word, where there's little elegance or artfullness in the construction, just rants against the Man. Indeed, McWhorter traces much of the downhill trend to the 1960s, when the rebellion against authorities tragically entailed a rejection of fine arts, which was mistakenly seen as elitist. McWhorter extends the argument to music, feeling that popular music today concentrates on rhythm at the expense of other parameters of music. Compare a rap song to a fine jazz tune from half a century ago: once upon a time popular music was rich. This extension is reasonable, but the musical portion of the book is so slim that it seems an after-thought; would that he have fleshed it out a bit. I'm also not sure I buy McWhorter's assertion that English-speaking cultures are the only ones neglecting linguist

Through tracing the simplification of American speech and music over the last century (in some cases, longer), McWhorter demonstrates the loss of complexity, and with it, a love for the English (American) language. Showing his own ambivalence about, or possibly seduction by, this simplification, McWhorter shows how this continued degradation is stripping our public discourse of the very richness and precision we most need in these complex times, though he doesn't hammer this point home. (Note: This book makes much more sense if one realizes that good writing is thought on paper.) McWhorter subtly implies, though never states, that the American public's desire for the 'real,' the 'honest' and the simple, is, perhaps, a mistake. Very well written (with a few editing mistakes!), I give it 4 stars, as it doesn't provide any ideas for changing the situation. Having said that, I am making efforts to improve my own writing and speaking as a result of this book.

There was a time not long ago in our history when an elaborate command of the English language was considered part of the fabric of American culture. Orator Edward Everett kept a crowd hanging on his every word during his three-hour speech (yes, three hours!) at Gettysburg in 1863 because he was an excellent orator in a time when American society valued excellent orators. Even during the first half of the 20th century, a command of spoken and written English on a level that today would confound many college students was not only required by the time one finished the eighth grade, but was the social norm; ain't so anymore.In Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care, John McWhorter examines this cultural decline in the use of high-fallutin English in contemporary America. He shows that people were taught from grade school, whether or not they went on for higher education, to always put the English language in its Sunday best. W.E.B. Du Bois stands out in particular. Du Bois's first assignment in a composition class at Harvard in 1890 was to write about himself. This is what he wrote:"For the usual purposes of identification I have been labeled in this life: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on the day after Washington's birthday, in 1868. I shall room during the present twelve-month at number twenty Flagg Street, Cambridge. As to who I really am, I am much in doubt, and can consequently give little reliable information from casual hints and observations. I doubt not that there are many who could supply better data than the writer. In the midst then of personal uncertainty I can only supply a few alleged facts from memory according to the usual way."And if that's not enough, he finishes with this closing linguistic zinger:"I have something to say to the world and I have taken English twelve in order to say it well."This example speaks volumes about the cultural currency that a high command of English possessed back then, and which no longer exists. Can you imagine anyone writing or speaking like this today and not be viewed as pretentious, arrogant or just plain uppity? What happened to cause American society to no longer value such an elevated command of our language? The authors shows that the 1960's, which scorned the American Establishment as oppressive and constricting, also caused modern-day America to view the highly stylized English of earlier generations as old-fashioned and morally suspect - hence the linguistic shift from the formal to the informal. Americans of an earlier time went out of their way to write and speak good English, and the gap between written and spoken English was indeed wide. The 1960's (McWhorter puts it around 1965 exactly) changed all that. Now, we just talk - and we write how we talk. Using dressed-up English is just so "old school." This counter-cultural revolution is also reflected in poetry, music and journa