Got to page 16, and decided I had wasted $14. What can I say about this book: A TOTAL PIECE OF UNACADEMIC CRAP. Supposed to be a linguistics book, it’s written in a rather unorthodox way. First, how many academians, or people interested in this book, would actually know anything about “Moe the Bartender” (The Simpsons) and his idiosyncratic use of speech. Then, it’s written for a typical American (a.k.a. monolingual) in complete disregard to the reverence and respect that should be given to other older languages, like those stemming from Latin. Furthermore, it characterizes a misrepresentation of the spoken word in other languages with phonetic spellings that should be accurate, yet represent sounds that do not exist in English, therefore degrading the quality of a language that may have been spoken for thousands of centuries.

I positively cannot understand why anyone would bother to write a book that makes him seem like an ignorant linguist-wanna-be, after working so long on achieving a Ph.D., and thus making the bestowing institution reconsider their original decision – but to no avail. Mr. McWhorter should have been a comedian instead. It was trully disappointing to find that a publishing company out there disgraced itself by publishing this book; on the other hand, I am glad it was not the publishing house of an academic institution. Nevertheless, books like this one should never hit the shelves.