In late May 2004, thanks in part to the vigilance of several outside readers who phoned in, we discovered that some person or persons had tampered with this feature's tally. Specifically, on May 16-17 ...

Bumper and Tease: NARRATOR: Now, back to Do You Speak American? Tommy Taylor: (singing) Had a piece of pie, had a piece of pudding, well I give it all away to the other side of goodin’. NARRATOR: Down ...

Tease: NARRATOR: How we talk to one another defines who we are. JOHN COFFIN: Ayuh! NARRATOR: And American English is as rich, diverse and lively as Americans themselves. CAJUN MAN: (Cajun) (Laughter) ...

QUESTION: Please explain your role in the various studies of "Middletown" [Muncie, Indiana]. HOWARD BAHR: On two Middletown surveys, I was one of two field supervisors, or co-investigators, officially ...

Interestingly, many of us consider our way of speaking to be neutral. It’s hard for us to hear features of our own speech that might be obvious to people who speak other dialects. When I say dialect, ...

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON: Well, for the first time, A. Philip Randolph demonstrated that blacks really have the power to put pressure on the government to move in directions that would enhance the status ...

THEODORE CAPLOW: Robert and Helen Lynd went to Muncie, Indiana in 1924, with a commission to study grassroots religion. And they came back in 1925 with a marvelous study of social change, having used ...

Suggested Reading/Additional Resources Bauer, Laurie and Peter Trudgill. 1998. Language Myths. London & New York: Penguin Books. (A collection of useful and easily understood articles, each dealing ...

WILLIAM CRONON: I think you won't understand Turner if you don't recognize what a profoundly nationalistic person he was. He was immensely proud of the United States of America, regarded, with many of ...

Linguist Carmen Fought tells us that language expresses our identity and reflects who we are, and who we want to be. Every time we speak, we give listeners information about ourselves and where we're ...

Wright brothers fly first motorized plane 1903 Photo: Wright Brothers' first flight Orville and Wilbur Wright were inspired by Otto Lilienthal, a German glider pioneer. Though he crashed to his death ...

QUESTION: Tell us a little bit about when Robert and Helen Lynd came to Muncie, Indiana to begin work on what would become the Middletown study. BRUCE GEELHOED: Lynd came to Muncie in the 1920's with ...