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Author

John McWhorter

John McWhorter teaches linguistics at Columbia University. He is the author of Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America.

All Articles
November 24, 2014
John McWhorter
Marion Barry Could Have Been a Great Mayor in Any Other American City
How D.C. brought out the worst in its infamous leader
August 18, 2014
John McWhorter
There Is Only One Real Way to Prevent Future Fergusons: End the War on Drugs
May 28, 2014
John McWhorter
Saint Maya
Angelou's flawed books helped relieve black writers of the burden of representing their race
May 16, 2014
John McWhorter
That Viral Story About the Racist Ice Cream Song Is Wrong
April 28, 2014
John McWhorter
We've Been Told that Different Languages Create Different Worldviews. They Don't.
April 7, 2014
John McWhorter
Gawker is Trying to Use 'Adult' Language. Good Luck to Them.
February 3, 2014
John McWhorter
Let's Stop Pretending That French Is an Important Language
January 24, 2014
John McWhorter
A Gender-Neutral Pronoun Won't Work in English. We're Stuck With "She" and "He."
January 10, 2014
John McWhorter
Internet-Speak is Improving English Because Empathy
The real significance of the new "because"
December 19, 2013
John McWhorter
This American Dictionary Is Full of Words You've Never Heard Before
An ambitious attempt to document the differences in regional English
October 1, 2013
John McWhorter
The Foolish, Malicious War on Apostrophe's
August 27, 2013
John McWhorter
Miley's Twerking Wasn't Racist
It's not right to call her VMA performance minstrelsy
August 9, 2013
John McWhorter
A Quixotic History of Doomed Efforts to Fix Spelling
July 20, 2013
John McWhorter
No More "Conversations"
We don't need to talk about race. We need to end racial profiling.
July 17, 2013
John McWhorter
The End of Racial Demagoguery
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are so over
July 2, 2013
John McWhorter
A New "C-Word"?
The ludicrous debate over the word "cracker"
June 27, 2013
John McWhorter
The Grumpy Grammarian: Surely, Actually the Scolds Have Lost Their Minds
May 23, 2013
John McWhorter
David Brooks' Favorite New Theory of Language Is Wrong
May 17, 2013
John McWhorter
Freedom From, Freedom To
Yes, you can end a sentence in a preposition
May 8, 2013
John McWhorter
Proof that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Had Assimilated? He Spoke Black
Black English, the most American part of our language

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