McWhorter makes a point of stating how vowel shifts are the norm and not unusual, discrete events. Spelling corresponded with pronunciation. English, it turns out, used to be much more phonetic than it is now. There was a thing called the Great Vowel Shift in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. McWhorter describes the process of how vowels shift over time in great detail and it’s fascinating. Makes sense, right? At the supper table last night, my family agreed to say it this way and it was fun. He’s pretty convincing with these, I suppose, but I’ll be curious to see if those two words are still so prominent in ten or twenty years.ĭid you know that good used to rhyme with food? So it was like gouda cheese. Dictionaries are merely snapshots in time of those stories.Īs you may guess from the title, McWhorter makes a case for the frequent use and varied meanings of like and for using literally to mean figuratively. Language is best viewed like a story, he argues, and we want a story to go new places. The gist of McWhorter’s book is that English, and all languages, change over time and that, all things considered, it’s better that way. McWhorter is a linguist and an English professor and he’s a delight to listen to. A few weeks ago, Ashbrook had John McWhorter on his show to talk about his latest book, Words on the move: why English won’t – and can’t – sit still (like, literally). One of my favorite radio programs/podcasts is On Point with John Ashbrook.

John mcwhorter words on the move