WEBVTT - The Origin of “You” – A Conversation with John McWhorter 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Bushkin. 0:00:22.356 --> 0:00:24.916 I was a fan of John mcquarter long before I 0:00:24.956 --> 0:00:27.436 met him for the first time. Mccorter is a linguist 0:00:27.476 --> 0:00:30.716 at Columbia University and a music lover and a New 0:00:30.796 --> 0:00:35.236 York Times columnist, basically a renaissance man. It was maybe 0:00:35.356 --> 0:00:38.196 twenty nineteen when we first spoke. At the time, I 0:00:38.276 --> 0:00:41.156 was working on something about Tom Bradley, who was mayor 0:00:41.196 --> 0:00:44.796 of Los Angeles from nineteen seventy three to nineteen ninety three, 0:00:45.236 --> 0:00:47.756 And while I listened to old tapes of Bradley, I 0:00:47.916 --> 0:00:51.556 was struck by something I heard. Listen, there is nothing 0:00:51.636 --> 0:00:52.516 there to hide. 0:00:52.716 --> 0:00:55.916 I want everybody to know that Tom Bradley's life has 0:00:55.956 --> 0:00:59.276 been an open book. And you know this is another 0:00:59.276 --> 0:01:00.156 demonstration of that. 0:01:01.036 --> 0:01:05.756 Tom Bradley is black, born in Texas, grew up in 0:01:05.796 --> 0:01:09.076 south central Los Angeles. So I went to see mcquarter, 0:01:09.436 --> 0:01:12.076 went to his rabbit warren of an office, played him 0:01:12.116 --> 0:01:14.996 that bit of tape and said, explain this to me. 0:01:15.796 --> 0:01:18.636 Why does a black guy whose parents were sharecroppers from 0:01:18.716 --> 0:01:23.156 Texas sound like Carry Grant? And for an hour of 0:01:23.196 --> 0:01:27.556 the most wonderful conversation he explained to me exactly why 0:01:27.556 --> 0:01:31.196 he did. Fast forward a few years, I was doing 0:01:31.196 --> 0:01:33.756 our series on the nineteen thirty six Olympics, and I 0:01:33.796 --> 0:01:36.916 got obsessed with Dorothy Thompson, who was one of the 0:01:36.916 --> 0:01:39.796 most important journalists in the world in the nineteen thirties. 0:01:40.316 --> 0:01:42.556 And I heard some old tapes of her and she 0:01:42.756 --> 0:01:46.276 sounded like she was the Duchess of York. Only do 0:01:46.276 --> 0:01:49.516 you know where she grew up? Buffalo? So who do 0:01:49.556 --> 0:01:51.796 I go to see to explain how people from Buffalo 0:01:51.876 --> 0:01:55.076 end up sounding like English royalty? You guessed it, John 0:01:55.156 --> 0:01:59.596 mc warter. My point is that there is a certain 0:01:59.676 --> 0:02:03.676 kind of question about language, about race, about why we 0:02:03.756 --> 0:02:06.476 speak the way we speak, for which the only answer is, 0:02:07.276 --> 0:02:12.476 let's call up John mcquarter. I love John mcquarter and 0:02:12.516 --> 0:02:14.196 when he said he had a new book coming out 0:02:14.436 --> 0:02:17.796 called Pronoun Trouble, I asked him could I interview you 0:02:17.836 --> 0:02:23.836 about it? And lucky for me, he said yes. My 0:02:23.956 --> 0:02:27.356 name is Malcolm Gladwell. This is Revisionist History, my podcast 0:02:27.356 --> 0:02:31.636 about things overlooked and misunderstood. In this episode, we're going 0:02:31.716 --> 0:02:34.516 to run the conversation I had with Jah mcquarter this 0:02:34.556 --> 0:02:38.716 spring at the ninety second Street Why, which was delightful. 0:02:41.236 --> 0:02:43.476 I did this interview with John right after finishing up 0:02:43.516 --> 0:02:47.036 the Joe Rogan episode of Revisionist History. If you listen 0:02:47.076 --> 0:02:49.076 to it, you'll know that I spent a lot of 0:02:49.156 --> 0:02:53.596 time talking about how to properly interview someone, how hard 0:02:53.596 --> 0:02:56.396 it is, and how Joe Rogan could learn a lot 0:02:56.436 --> 0:02:59.716 from someone like Oprah. And that episode was very much 0:02:59.716 --> 0:03:02.156 on my mind as I was interviewing the quarter because 0:03:02.196 --> 0:03:04.956 I was thinking, oh am I going to measure up. 0:03:05.436 --> 0:03:09.796 Where do I land on the Oprah Joe Rogan continuum. 0:03:09.836 --> 0:03:12.116 I'll let you be the judge of that. Although I 0:03:12.156 --> 0:03:15.316 will say this is not exactly a fair test. The 0:03:15.396 --> 0:03:19.316 degree of difficulty with interviewing someone as charming as John 0:03:19.396 --> 0:03:29.036 mcwarter is very very hell hello everyone, thanks for coming, John, 0:03:29.356 --> 0:03:31.996 Thank you for agreeing to join us tonight. 0:03:32.196 --> 0:03:33.596 Malcolm, thank you for having me. 0:03:33.756 --> 0:03:37.316 No the this is our I wanted to. I was 0:03:37.316 --> 0:03:39.836 thinking back when I I first met you, and I 0:03:39.836 --> 0:03:42.196 think it was I called you opera went to see 0:03:42.276 --> 0:03:48.076 you because I was doing something on the first black 0:03:48.076 --> 0:03:50.596 mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley. It was Tom Bradley, 0:03:50.596 --> 0:03:52.276 that's right, yeah, And I was listening to tapes of 0:03:52.356 --> 0:03:55.996 him speaking and he sounded like the whitest guy I 0:03:55.996 --> 0:03:57.756 could imagine and I was trying to. 0:03:57.756 --> 0:04:00.436 Figure out why I sounded like a Disney announcer. 0:04:01.716 --> 0:04:04.196 And you gave wait, tell me a little bit before 0:04:04.196 --> 0:04:06.036 we even get into this. It was so much fun 0:04:06.156 --> 0:04:08.516 your answer. Explain to me why that would be. 0:04:08.596 --> 0:04:11.596 So I don't remember what I said then because it 0:04:11.636 --> 0:04:14.316 was before you know what, and therefore it feels like 0:04:14.356 --> 0:04:16.996 it was seventy five years ago. But I know that 0:04:17.036 --> 0:04:18.996 I probably would have said that he would have grown 0:04:19.076 --> 0:04:24.316 up in a time when the unspoken cultural expectations of 0:04:24.956 --> 0:04:27.716 oratory culture were such that if you were trying to 0:04:27.796 --> 0:04:30.516 make your way in the world, whatever color you are, 0:04:30.556 --> 0:04:33.276 as an American, there was an expectation that you would 0:04:33.596 --> 0:04:38.036 learn the standard dialect and be absolutely comfortable in it. Frankly, 0:04:38.116 --> 0:04:40.676 Booker T. Washington did that too. He was born a slave. 0:04:40.716 --> 0:04:43.556 If you listen to recordings, you'd think he was Teddy Roosevelt, 0:04:43.676 --> 0:04:46.116 and that's because that's what you had to do, which 0:04:46.156 --> 0:04:48.556 was kind of unfair. But I was thinking he comes 0:04:48.596 --> 0:04:52.876 from the time when black people were expected to speak 0:04:52.916 --> 0:04:55.036 that way if they wanted to have public influence. And 0:04:55.076 --> 0:04:58.276 I'm sure that he spoke in different ways when he 0:04:58.316 --> 0:05:00.996 did not have the camera on him, didn't I say 0:05:00.996 --> 0:05:02.276 that I'm trying. 0:05:02.076 --> 0:05:05.636 To say something along that lines, and we were the thing. 0:05:05.796 --> 0:05:09.116 The fascinating question is when it did death stop? It stopped? 0:05:09.596 --> 0:05:10.596 Yeah, he doesn't. 0:05:10.316 --> 0:05:12.356 Sound like that if he's the mayor of Los Angeles today. 0:05:12.596 --> 0:05:15.956 No. No, that ended in the late sixties, and there 0:05:16.036 --> 0:05:17.876 was a new idea, and in some ways a healthy 0:05:17.916 --> 0:05:20.916 idea that to be taken seriously. You don't have to 0:05:21.036 --> 0:05:23.836 learn to talk in the standard way. You can express 0:05:23.876 --> 0:05:25.076 yourself how you feel like it. 0:05:25.156 --> 0:05:28.876 The minute I mentioned Tom Brady to you, you were like, oh, 0:05:29.036 --> 0:05:31.076 I remember I played you with tape. You're like, oh, 0:05:31.156 --> 0:05:33.636 And I realized, oh, this is old hat for John. 0:05:33.796 --> 0:05:35.676 This is what it means to be a linguist. You're 0:05:35.716 --> 0:05:39.036 constantly entertaining, asking yourself those kinds of questions. You can't 0:05:39.116 --> 0:05:40.276 let a. 0:05:40.076 --> 0:05:44.436 More or less. Yeah. Although I happen to be what's 0:05:44.516 --> 0:05:47.076 called a historical linguist, which means that I'm interested in 0:05:47.076 --> 0:05:49.916 how language changes, you can be somebody who's interested in 0:05:49.956 --> 0:05:52.996 just how language is right now, in which case that 0:05:53.236 --> 0:05:56.396 Tom Bradley question would be less of interest. But for me, 0:05:56.636 --> 0:05:58.436 it's all about what was going on in the past, 0:05:58.476 --> 0:06:02.236 and especially nowadays, we're at the point where you have 0:06:02.476 --> 0:06:06.276 one hundred years it's actually technically one hundred and two 0:06:06.396 --> 0:06:11.476 years of people recorded speaking and moving at the same time. 0:06:11.516 --> 0:06:14.916 And so there's some sound films starting in nineteen twenty three, 0:06:15.196 --> 0:06:17.516 and that to me is history, especially now that we've 0:06:17.516 --> 0:06:19.796 got the Internet and so you can just see these 0:06:19.836 --> 0:06:22.036 things happening and you can listen to the way people talk, 0:06:22.316 --> 0:06:24.556 and so that's something I do. Not all linguists would 0:06:24.556 --> 0:06:27.156 be inclined to do that. They would do other interesting things, 0:06:27.196 --> 0:06:30.916 but it's a little obsession of mine, especially lately. How 0:06:30.956 --> 0:06:34.036 has American English changed over about the past one hundred 0:06:34.036 --> 0:06:36.876 and twenty five years. When you can actually hear it, 0:06:36.916 --> 0:06:38.916 you can listen to this won't go on for too 0:06:38.956 --> 0:06:42.796 much longer, but you can listen to the black musical 0:06:42.796 --> 0:06:45.556 theater artist Bert Williams, who has a certain name, but 0:06:45.596 --> 0:06:48.556 he first became famous working with George Walker. They're two 0:06:48.596 --> 0:06:50.876 black men. You can see them in pictures and you 0:06:50.916 --> 0:06:53.676 know they've got the minstrel makeup and they're in these 0:06:53.716 --> 0:06:55.956 forced poses and you kind of think, what were they 0:06:56.036 --> 0:06:58.556 like and it's hard to tell. There's some recordings of them, 0:06:58.556 --> 0:07:01.316 there are a few, and they're like like that. You 0:07:01.356 --> 0:07:04.516 can listen to the way they spoke and sang. They 0:07:04.636 --> 0:07:09.116 both sound Caribbean, including George Walker who grew up in Kansas, 0:07:09.396 --> 0:07:12.116 because Black English vowels were different back then. If you 0:07:12.156 --> 0:07:15.076 listen to black people on cylinders from the eighteen nineties 0:07:15.116 --> 0:07:18.276 and then then they don't say quote, they say quote 0:07:18.676 --> 0:07:21.796 like that somebody's gonna marry me. Somebody's going to marry me. 0:07:22.276 --> 0:07:25.236 That's how they sounded. And so these are the obsessions 0:07:25.276 --> 0:07:27.356 that one starts to have. 0:07:27.836 --> 0:07:31.676 When you say you have but this sounds like a 0:07:31.716 --> 0:07:35.916 fantastic obsession. By the way, how does that like? Is 0:07:35.956 --> 0:07:38.836 this something you do sort of for fun? In other words, 0:07:38.916 --> 0:07:42.036 do you have places you go to find these historical 0:07:43.476 --> 0:07:45.316 or are you just watching a movie from the thirties 0:07:45.396 --> 0:07:47.996 and you stop it and you go back five minutes 0:07:48.036 --> 0:07:48.876 and you lay up on. 0:07:49.036 --> 0:07:52.236 Both of those things. Yeah, and it's not only black people, 0:07:52.276 --> 0:07:55.476 it's just people in general. Listen to that vowel. Why 0:07:55.516 --> 0:07:59.196 did the person use the word fantastical in that particular way. 0:07:59.436 --> 0:08:01.316 There are all sorts of things, and then like, do 0:08:01.356 --> 0:08:03.796 I go looking for it? Not necessarily, but if I 0:08:03.836 --> 0:08:08.036 find out that there is some four CD player set 0:08:08.276 --> 0:08:12.036 called Sad of the deep past. The first thing I'm 0:08:12.076 --> 0:08:14.556 thinking is how interesting could most of that be? But 0:08:14.636 --> 0:08:17.436 there'll be two things where somebody is black or somebody 0:08:17.596 --> 0:08:20.676 is using something colloquial. And so I'll listen to all 0:08:20.716 --> 0:08:23.516 four of those damn CDs once because you never know 0:08:23.636 --> 0:08:26.556 what you're gonna get, and you get just enough to 0:08:26.636 --> 0:08:28.876 put into books and to mention to you and things 0:08:28.916 --> 0:08:29.116 like that. 0:08:29.556 --> 0:08:32.876 So when did you when did you, at what point 0:08:32.916 --> 0:08:37.196 in your in your career life, whatever, did you realize 0:08:37.196 --> 0:08:40.396 that this was something of particular interest to you? 0:08:40.396 --> 0:08:41.916 You mean linguistics in general. 0:08:42.036 --> 0:08:43.996 No, No, this thing you're just talking about that. 0:08:46.596 --> 0:08:53.236 It's a summer day in nineteen seventy five and my 0:08:53.356 --> 0:08:56.436 father's got his beer and he's watching this bad old 0:08:56.476 --> 0:09:01.476 movie and it was a movie biography, old one of 0:09:01.516 --> 0:09:06.156 Stephen Foster, and the people keep walking through and they 0:09:06.316 --> 0:09:09.076 the vowels are different, and I'm gonna write swanee River. 0:09:09.716 --> 0:09:11.756 And I asked d why did they talk that way? 0:09:12.156 --> 0:09:15.356 And he said, well, you know, things change, and that's 0:09:15.396 --> 0:09:18.916 about all he had. But I remember thinking those were 0:09:18.956 --> 0:09:22.556 real people and yet they don't talk like us. Why? 0:09:22.996 --> 0:09:27.196 And then a seed was gradually planted. There's an episode 0:09:27.236 --> 0:09:30.676 of I've ever spoken about this. There's an episode of 0:09:30.756 --> 0:09:33.076 the Lucy Show, not I Love Lucy, but her second 0:09:33.076 --> 0:09:36.596 show that got bad. And in one of the early episodes, 0:09:37.356 --> 0:09:40.356 Lucy gets a maid and the maid is snobbish, and 0:09:40.396 --> 0:09:43.316 so Lucy starts buying the maid lunch and at one 0:09:43.316 --> 0:09:46.316 point she says, Oh, it's a roast chicken. It's broasted. 0:09:46.516 --> 0:09:48.756 And she says, it's broasted. And I was listening to 0:09:48.756 --> 0:09:50.636 that when I was about thirteen and thinking, that's not 0:09:50.676 --> 0:09:53.196 a word anymore. Is it? That sort of thing for 0:09:53.236 --> 0:09:56.676 some reason interests me? And next thing, you know, you've 0:09:56.716 --> 0:09:59.836 got so much of it stuck crowding out more important 0:09:59.836 --> 0:10:02.956 things in your head. But you can write books about. 0:10:02.716 --> 0:10:05.756 It, John, you gotta do better than that. You can't 0:10:05.796 --> 0:10:07.876 say for some reason it interested me. You got to 0:10:07.916 --> 0:10:10.556 tell me good, tell us more than that. 0:10:11.476 --> 0:10:15.356 The way people talk is very resonant to me. And 0:10:15.356 --> 0:10:17.836 as I've gotten older, I've realized that for other people 0:10:17.836 --> 0:10:20.316 it's the way people walk, or the way somebody dances, 0:10:20.316 --> 0:10:22.276 of the way people dress. But I know from a 0:10:22.356 --> 0:10:26.836 very early age just speech was interesting. It was a 0:10:26.916 --> 0:10:31.436 window into the soul. People spoke differently, and that was 0:10:31.476 --> 0:10:34.116 about this much blackness. It was just listening to people 0:10:34.476 --> 0:10:37.516 in general, getting a sense that my teachers had a 0:10:37.556 --> 0:10:40.396 certain accent that the white people on TV didn't have. 0:10:40.716 --> 0:10:44.756 In Philadelphia, you say lousy whereas Lucy says lousy. And 0:10:44.796 --> 0:10:49.076 I was thinking, well, that's interesting, annoying my southern relatives 0:10:49.076 --> 0:10:51.756 by noticing that they had different vocabulary here and there. 0:10:51.876 --> 0:10:54.156 You know, I'm this little kid, I talk like missed 0:10:54.236 --> 0:10:56.556 and I say, you say Carrie when we would say take, 0:10:56.756 --> 0:10:59.876 and they would get tired of that. But I realized 0:10:59.876 --> 0:11:03.996 that it was because I was interested in dialect. Also, 0:11:06.436 --> 0:11:08.556 one thing I missed, and I think it's partly from 0:11:08.596 --> 0:11:11.796 being black, is I never heard Black English as wrong. 0:11:12.356 --> 0:11:14.636 I didn't grow up speaking it. I grew up hearing it. 0:11:14.676 --> 0:11:17.316 I have a good passive competence. But I remember cousins 0:11:17.316 --> 0:11:19.436 who you know very much, spoke it and they would 0:11:19.516 --> 0:11:22.596 use features of Black English, and I would listen and 0:11:22.676 --> 0:11:25.596 not think nothing. You know, some people just not care. 0:11:26.116 --> 0:11:29.676 I would not think that's bad grammar, that's wrong. I 0:11:29.676 --> 0:11:32.356 wouldn't think it was exotic. I would listen to it 0:11:32.396 --> 0:11:35.116 and think, hmm, that's different from the way I would 0:11:35.156 --> 0:11:39.036 put it, And I wonder, why is that based on 0:11:39.116 --> 0:11:41.076 something in history. I had one cousin who was using 0:11:41.076 --> 0:11:43.756 what we call the narrative, had people who studied Black 0:11:43.796 --> 0:11:45.996 English and so, and then we had gone downstairs, and 0:11:46.036 --> 0:11:47.556 then we had seen that there was a raccoon in 0:11:47.556 --> 0:11:49.076 the basement, and then we had said, hey, let's get 0:11:49.116 --> 0:11:51.356 rid of that raccoon. And then we had gone back upstairs. 0:11:51.396 --> 0:11:53.396 And I keep waiting for you had what, and then what, 0:11:54.036 --> 0:11:56.596 and it was just all had And I remember listening 0:11:56.676 --> 0:11:59.636 to Darren doing that and thinking that must be different 0:12:00.076 --> 0:12:02.796 instead of him not knowing what had means. And then 0:12:02.996 --> 0:12:05.316 years later I found out that linguist had written about that. 0:12:05.476 --> 0:12:11.076 Wait, my wife, who's black, Uh, she uses that. That's 0:12:11.076 --> 0:12:14.396 where it comes from. What she sticks head in the 0:12:14.476 --> 0:12:15.476 craziest places. 0:12:16.996 --> 0:12:19.676 It might be a black thing, yes, or like when 0:12:19.676 --> 0:12:22.396 Will Smith says, well, what had happened was he's. 0:12:22.676 --> 0:12:23.196 What she did? 0:12:23.356 --> 0:12:23.556 Yeah? 0:12:23.636 --> 0:12:27.796 She said today she said, I had went. I don't 0:12:27.836 --> 0:12:32.516 understand this is a highly educated went to Princeton lawyer 0:12:33.196 --> 0:12:35.756 in she just takes head and just kind of like 0:12:36.636 --> 0:12:39.676 shovels it in randomly into her senses. 0:12:39.996 --> 0:12:42.836 That is, that is because it's a good, earthy yet 0:12:42.836 --> 0:12:47.396 systematic way of using using the language. It's called narrative had. 0:12:47.436 --> 0:12:50.036 There are papers about it, noticeably papers. There's one paper 0:12:50.036 --> 0:12:50.436 about it. 0:12:50.596 --> 0:12:54.276 So her father, wait, I want to her father grew 0:12:54.356 --> 0:12:58.836 up in both Harlem and Jacksonville, Florida, and he would 0:12:58.876 --> 0:13:00.436 be growing up in the fifties. 0:13:01.636 --> 0:13:04.076 He would have gotten that narrative had from Harlem, most 0:13:04.156 --> 0:13:08.156 likely from Harlem. Yeah, that's good, solid northern Black English. Yeah. 0:13:08.476 --> 0:13:13.636 Now you said something earlier that you didn't speak Black 0:13:13.636 --> 0:13:14.356 English growing up. 0:13:14.476 --> 0:13:19.396 Why not? That's deep, Malcolm. Actually, that gets into my 0:13:19.796 --> 0:13:24.356 parents and what they were like, and so plenty of 0:13:24.436 --> 0:13:28.956 black family speaking the dialect fluently. Mount Area in Philadelphia 0:13:28.996 --> 0:13:31.396 was a very integrated neighborhood. The black people in the 0:13:31.436 --> 0:13:35.156 neighborhood had become middle class from mostly being working class. 0:13:35.156 --> 0:13:37.396 So there was plenty of Black English spoken in the neighborhood. 0:13:37.716 --> 0:13:40.876 Close friends of mine spoke it. My mother grew up 0:13:40.956 --> 0:13:45.116 speaking Southern Black English, but switched to a kind of 0:13:45.316 --> 0:13:49.836 generalized suburban Northern when she moved to Philadelphia. My father 0:13:49.916 --> 0:13:52.876 spoke Philadelphia Black English. But and this is something I 0:13:52.916 --> 0:13:55.396 really have only wrapped my head around over the past 0:13:55.436 --> 0:13:59.756 about year really thinking about it. They were not inclined 0:13:59.836 --> 0:14:04.236 to use their vernacular around their kids. They didn't speak 0:14:04.276 --> 0:14:06.836 it to us. I remember thinking, Mom gets on the 0:14:06.836 --> 0:14:08.476 phone with her relatives and all of a sudden, there's 0:14:08.516 --> 0:14:10.956 this other way she has of speaking. I was trying 0:14:10.996 --> 0:14:13.156 to wrap my head around it. Whereas, to tell you 0:14:13.236 --> 0:14:16.436 the truth, most black moms would have spoken that way, 0:14:16.476 --> 0:14:18.916 at least some to their kids as well. And the 0:14:18.916 --> 0:14:21.156 truth is both of my parents tried their best. They 0:14:21.156 --> 0:14:24.356 were both brilliant people. They provided a materially great existence, 0:14:24.596 --> 0:14:27.836 but they were both very closed off people in general, 0:14:28.076 --> 0:14:31.996 and that played out in terms of dialect. Then also, 0:14:32.196 --> 0:14:34.316 my sister talks exactly like me. If I have a 0:14:34.356 --> 0:14:36.556 weird voice, as one other person, it's my sister who's 0:14:36.556 --> 0:14:38.876 four years younger, and she sounds just like this. So 0:14:38.956 --> 0:14:41.716 it was it was both of us, and I find 0:14:41.756 --> 0:14:45.556 myself thinking, sometimes we both do that. But also I'm not. 0:14:46.476 --> 0:14:48.476 I'm not an imitator, you know, as much as I 0:14:48.476 --> 0:14:50.836 love other languages and trying to learn them and never 0:14:51.076 --> 0:14:53.956 never doing it as well as I'd like to. Holly, 0:14:54.276 --> 0:14:57.436 my sister went to Spelman and came back with this 0:14:57.516 --> 0:15:00.316 new repertoire. All of a sudden she could switch. She 0:15:00.356 --> 0:15:02.396 had a kind of black English, she had the cadence, 0:15:02.636 --> 0:15:04.756 whereas I never did that. And to be honest, if 0:15:04.756 --> 0:15:06.756 I had gone to morehouse, I don't think that would 0:15:06.796 --> 0:15:08.996 have happened. I talk the way I talk in other 0:15:09.116 --> 0:15:11.796 people imitate me, and I think that's just you know, 0:15:11.916 --> 0:15:15.836 neurons or something. You know. I like the way I talk. 0:15:15.996 --> 0:15:18.956 I'm not going to talk like someone else. But that 0:15:19.196 --> 0:15:22.316 is the reason. And I wish that I had picked 0:15:22.356 --> 0:15:25.556 it up for real, because not having that natural competence 0:15:26.276 --> 0:15:29.156 means that you come off sometimes as thinking you're better 0:15:29.196 --> 0:15:31.116 than people when really it's just that that's not in 0:15:31.156 --> 0:15:33.756 your mouth. And I can completely understand what it would 0:15:33.796 --> 0:15:37.956 look like from another perspective, but yeah, that's it sometimes. 0:15:37.956 --> 0:15:40.276 To be honest, I have wished that I was and 0:15:40.356 --> 0:15:42.316 I'm not just saying this because it's you, except I am. 0:15:42.676 --> 0:15:45.676 I wish that I was Black Canadian because I think 0:15:45.716 --> 0:15:48.076 that's less of an issue there in terms of the 0:15:48.116 --> 0:15:51.236 place of American Black English in what it is to 0:15:51.276 --> 0:15:53.716 be a black person. But that's just an idle thought. 0:15:54.036 --> 0:15:57.756 I remember the first time I saw that kind of 0:15:59.276 --> 0:16:04.756 the switching as a kid in Jamaica, seeing my uncle, 0:16:06.116 --> 0:16:10.876 you know, a brown skin Jamaican talked to us in 0:16:10.916 --> 0:16:14.276 the Queen's English, and he was getting gas, had a 0:16:14.316 --> 0:16:14.996 gas pump. 0:16:15.756 --> 0:16:17.036 That was amazing. 0:16:17.636 --> 0:16:20.596 I'm maybe nine, gets out of the car and he 0:16:20.636 --> 0:16:22.756 starts talking to the guy pumping the gas, and there's 0:16:22.756 --> 0:16:27.996 some It wasn't just that he switched into Patuas, it 0:16:28.036 --> 0:16:30.556 was that he also his manner. 0:16:30.236 --> 0:16:31.796 Completely changed you a different person. 0:16:32.036 --> 0:16:34.796 He was there. They were doing that Jamaican thing where 0:16:34.796 --> 0:16:38.996 they're shouting at each other even though they're not angry, yes, 0:16:39.236 --> 0:16:41.196 which I'd never seen before. I thought, this is the 0:16:41.196 --> 0:16:43.196 coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. That 0:16:43.236 --> 0:16:46.236 he could go from literally Malcolm blah blah blah and 0:16:46.276 --> 0:16:49.196 then boom, and it was just that kind of. 0:16:49.196 --> 0:16:51.996 And that kind of trash talking thing, just like their 0:16:52.036 --> 0:16:55.356 papers written about that one. Actually, yeah, that is that 0:16:56.036 --> 0:16:59.756 is very common. That must have been wild. Yeah, especially 0:16:59.756 --> 0:17:01.716 to see that big a switch, because in my case 0:17:01.756 --> 0:17:04.196 it was like from here to here. But with Patuas, 0:17:04.396 --> 0:17:07.556 first he's Margaret Thatcher and then suddenly he's Bob Marley. 0:17:07.596 --> 0:17:08.396 That must have been. 0:17:10.236 --> 0:17:12.396 Or my mother hearing my then I began to hear 0:17:12.556 --> 0:17:16.156 my mother when she would get angry, she would lapse, 0:17:16.356 --> 0:17:19.116 not into full on bad way. But you could hear 0:17:19.156 --> 0:17:22.116 the Jamaican coming out of that idea as well. It's 0:17:22.116 --> 0:17:26.956 funny because I'm making the same on some level observations 0:17:26.956 --> 0:17:29.676 you are as a child, but I have no I 0:17:29.916 --> 0:17:32.956 what sidetracks me at that age is not how people 0:17:32.956 --> 0:17:37.156 are speaking, but how they're telling, how they're explaining things. 0:17:37.836 --> 0:17:39.796 I get obsessed in the same way that you. I 0:17:39.836 --> 0:17:41.476 think it's funny, in the same way that you got 0:17:41.516 --> 0:17:45.076 obsessed with how your people are expressing themselves. To me, 0:17:45.156 --> 0:17:49.516 it was about we're we're gonna we're playing hearts, and 0:17:49.916 --> 0:17:52.036 our cousin doesn't know how to play hearts, and my 0:17:52.076 --> 0:17:54.836 brother's starts expanding hearts to my cousin. He's doing it 0:17:54.876 --> 0:17:59.516 all wrong. That was my obsessions. I'm sick. I'm just like, why, 0:17:59.836 --> 0:18:03.196 why start with the point of the game, like, what 0:18:03.236 --> 0:18:03.756 are you doing? 0:18:04.636 --> 0:18:09.636 Yeah? And I realized how deeply kind of and it 0:18:09.716 --> 0:18:16.036 bothered you. Oh to this day it works. 0:18:13.076 --> 0:18:18.756 I always just assumed that people were going to do 0:18:18.796 --> 0:18:20.956 stuff wrong, and I would have been listening to what 0:18:20.996 --> 0:18:22.236 the grammar was. 0:18:22.396 --> 0:18:25.476 No, no, no, I uh. If the surest way for me 0:18:25.556 --> 0:18:30.516 to completely lose my cool is to read instructions that 0:18:30.556 --> 0:18:33.556 someone has written for something just like this is this 0:18:33.596 --> 0:18:36.436 is I mean, come on, I want to call up 0:18:36.436 --> 0:18:40.076 the company and volunteer my services. We'll be right back 0:18:40.076 --> 0:18:52.116 with more of my conversation with John McCarter. I want 0:18:52.156 --> 0:18:55.076 to talk a little bit about your and by the way, 0:18:56.116 --> 0:18:57.996 I always find this question, if it's asked to me, 0:18:58.076 --> 0:18:59.876 deeply annoying, so you don't have to answer it if 0:18:59.876 --> 0:19:01.796 you don't want to. But I wanted to talk about 0:19:01.836 --> 0:19:05.276 your kind of place in the culture right now, which 0:19:05.316 --> 0:19:07.276 is really interesting to me. And I have a grand, 0:19:08.276 --> 0:19:10.036 unified a quarter theory. 0:19:10.116 --> 0:19:12.236 I want to hear this because I don't. 0:19:13.156 --> 0:19:18.036 Here's my theory. At any given moment, in sort of 0:19:18.796 --> 0:19:22.236 popular culture or intellectual popular culture, there is someone who's 0:19:22.276 --> 0:19:26.556 allowed to get away with saying anything. You that person. 0:19:27.916 --> 0:19:32.396 I think you get to say whatever you want for 0:19:32.436 --> 0:19:34.476 a variety of reasons, which i'd like you to unpack. 0:19:34.796 --> 0:19:38.036 Can you give me Can you give me one half 0:19:38.076 --> 0:19:41.356 of an example of what you mean? Like, I'm allowed 0:19:41.396 --> 0:19:42.956 to say it, but no one else is. 0:19:44.356 --> 0:19:48.236 As in, you wrote a beautiful was it or not bad? 0:19:48.316 --> 0:19:51.116 I can't remember where you wrote it? A thing about 0:19:51.116 --> 0:19:53.836 your own experience with affirmative action, Yes, no, one else 0:19:53.876 --> 0:19:54.436 could write that. 0:19:55.236 --> 0:19:55.556 True. 0:19:57.476 --> 0:20:04.956 You write about you in your column are constantly, in 0:20:04.996 --> 0:20:07.916 a very beautiful way, kind of setting down the rules 0:20:07.956 --> 0:20:12.996 for discourse, particularly around your code switching column of yesterday, 0:20:13.476 --> 0:20:15.796 like all right, not allowed to do that? You know 0:20:15.996 --> 0:20:17.116 this way? 0:20:17.276 --> 0:20:20.596 You must forget them the minute I write them this today? 0:20:20.596 --> 0:20:25.356 Oh today is what's her name? The Congress from Jasmine Crockett. Yes, okay, 0:20:25.396 --> 0:20:28.396 Jasmon Crockett. You said, very gently and nicely, you said 0:20:28.396 --> 0:20:31.156 to her, come on, now, you get to do that. 0:20:31.876 --> 0:20:33.756 I do you know what? 0:20:33.796 --> 0:20:34.636 Who else can do that? 0:20:36.556 --> 0:20:39.116 What you're saying is something I'm feeling as I get 0:20:39.116 --> 0:20:42.996 a little older, because I'm pushing sixty and so I'm 0:20:42.996 --> 0:20:46.956 no longer the young pup, and i feel like I've 0:20:46.996 --> 0:20:49.556 got a certain amount of life experience, and also just 0:20:49.596 --> 0:20:51.796 I'm beginning to come off as the kind of person 0:20:51.796 --> 0:20:56.116 who you call sir or in the parking lot, okay, boss, 0:20:56.316 --> 0:20:59.596 you know that sort of thing, And so I'm beginning 0:20:59.756 --> 0:21:04.916 to take those chances to an extent with Jasmine Crockett. 0:21:04.956 --> 0:21:07.236 I will say this, I was very careful in the 0:21:07.276 --> 0:21:11.036 wording of that because I thought, especially because she's forty 0:21:11.036 --> 0:21:13.916 in a bit and I'm about to be sixty. I male, 0:21:14.316 --> 0:21:17.036 I have an imperious demeanor. I don't think that she 0:21:17.196 --> 0:21:20.596 did anything that was absolutely sinful, and so honestly, in 0:21:20.636 --> 0:21:23.076 the editing of that, we were very careful with the words, 0:21:23.076 --> 0:21:24.476 and so near the end of it, I say that 0:21:24.996 --> 0:21:27.516 her explanation for why she made fun of the man 0:21:27.596 --> 0:21:31.836 in the wheelchair was what did I call it, I'm 0:21:31.876 --> 0:21:36.196 clever but hopeless. And there was an idea that I 0:21:36.236 --> 0:21:39.956 was supposed to say clever but cowardly, and I said, no, 0:21:40.876 --> 0:21:43.436 that's too mean. I don't want to call her a coward. 0:21:43.596 --> 0:21:45.636 I want to say that the explanation just doesn't work. 0:21:45.756 --> 0:21:47.516 So I think part of it, but the fact that 0:21:47.556 --> 0:21:48.996 I wrote that at all, I don't know if I 0:21:49.036 --> 0:21:51.116 would have written that one twenty years ago, or if 0:21:51.116 --> 0:21:54.196 I did, it would have been read as John just 0:21:54.316 --> 0:21:56.556 likes to criticize black people, and he does that every week, 0:21:56.596 --> 0:21:58.676 when I actually do it very rarely. But I think 0:21:58.716 --> 0:22:01.116 what you're talking about is that I'm getting a little 0:22:01.236 --> 0:22:05.156 older and therefore feel like I can say things that 0:22:05.196 --> 0:22:08.276 I couldn't when I was Coleman Hughes's age like thirty, 0:22:08.476 --> 0:22:10.516 where if I say things even if I thought I 0:22:10.556 --> 0:22:13.316 was right, it would be you're too young, how dare you? 0:22:13.516 --> 0:22:15.636 And I really felt at the time, I need to 0:22:15.676 --> 0:22:18.036 respect my elders. I would try very hard to do that, 0:22:18.276 --> 0:22:22.556 especially in Black American culture. Don't you don't sass your elders, 0:22:22.556 --> 0:22:25.836 You don't sass your parents. Well, now I'm my parents, 0:22:26.236 --> 0:22:29.156 and so I'm going to start doing some constructive sassing. 0:22:29.196 --> 0:22:29.996 I think that's part of. 0:22:29.996 --> 0:22:35.876 It, part of it as well. I think there's other layers. Well, 0:22:35.876 --> 0:22:38.636 one is that as a linguist, as someone who pays 0:22:38.676 --> 0:22:43.556 as much attention to language as you do, you're better 0:22:43.636 --> 0:22:43.956 at it. 0:22:44.996 --> 0:22:45.916 I don't. I'm not. 0:22:47.596 --> 0:22:50.556 By which I mean that. Just the example you just 0:22:50.596 --> 0:22:56.916 gave on parsing the difference between cowardly and hopeless, that 0:22:57.396 --> 0:23:00.916 someone who was not as attuned to the nuances of 0:23:00.996 --> 0:23:04.436 language might have said cowardly with a quite a you know, 0:23:04.476 --> 0:23:07.276 there's quite a dramatic difference in the way that would 0:23:07.316 --> 0:23:11.356 be perceived and read. Yeah, and you're but you are 0:23:11.436 --> 0:23:15.476 professionally alert to those nuances, and that permits you a 0:23:15.516 --> 0:23:19.236 great deal more freedom. I think that most people dramatically 0:23:19.276 --> 0:23:24.036 underestimate how important word choice is and how acutely sensitive 0:23:24.036 --> 0:23:26.156 we are to the word the words that are used, 0:23:26.196 --> 0:23:28.116 particularly if they're directed at us. I want to talk 0:23:28.116 --> 0:23:29.356 about my favorite chapter. 0:23:29.156 --> 0:23:30.756 In the book. What's the favorite. 0:23:31.036 --> 0:23:32.876 It's the it's the chapter about you. 0:23:33.476 --> 0:23:37.636 Thank you for not being about they and them? Okay you, Yeah, 0:23:37.836 --> 0:23:39.596 that was the one that was the funnest to write. 0:23:39.636 --> 0:23:42.116 It's the fun it is, so just sit to work. 0:23:42.676 --> 0:23:46.156 Explain briefly to everyone the structure of the book. 0:23:47.036 --> 0:23:48.996 The book is. It's not just a book about they. 0:23:49.276 --> 0:23:51.236 I mean there. I think there already is a book 0:23:51.436 --> 0:23:54.356 just about they. I couldn't have sustained anyone's attention for 0:23:54.396 --> 0:23:57.396 that long. It's each pronoun So there's I, there's you, 0:23:57.676 --> 0:24:00.356 there's he, she, it, there's we, and there's a. So 0:24:00.396 --> 0:24:03.316 that's seven chapters. Notice that it's a compact and the 0:24:03.396 --> 0:24:05.516 idea is to give the history of each one of 0:24:05.556 --> 0:24:08.996 those little words, and then to discuss some controversy that 0:24:09.316 --> 0:24:12.796 is connected with them. We kind of resist controversy. That 0:24:12.876 --> 0:24:15.436 chapter was a challenge because I was thinking, nobody fights 0:24:15.516 --> 0:24:17.716 over week. But I got a chapter out of it anyway. 0:24:17.756 --> 0:24:20.956 But that was the point. And of course, when I 0:24:21.036 --> 0:24:24.356 was writing it in twenty twenty three on a sun 0:24:24.356 --> 0:24:28.556 porch Upstate, I was thinking ha ha, happy linguistic pronouns, 0:24:28.596 --> 0:24:32.156 because the book before this was called wok Racism, and 0:24:32.236 --> 0:24:36.756 it was a bourbon fueled, angry little screed that needed 0:24:36.756 --> 0:24:39.196 to be written in twenty twenty. But it's this book 0:24:39.236 --> 0:24:41.676 where I'm screaming on every page, and books like that 0:24:41.716 --> 0:24:44.076 are not fun to write. So after that was over, 0:24:44.396 --> 0:24:45.836 I thought, I want to do one of the happy 0:24:45.916 --> 0:24:48.356 language books, and I thought, what about the pronouns. The 0:24:48.436 --> 0:24:50.316 last thing I was thinking was all of this debate 0:24:50.356 --> 0:24:52.676 we're having now about TRANSI identity, et cetera. I was 0:24:52.676 --> 0:24:55.276 just writing about pronouns. So the book has fallen into 0:24:55.356 --> 0:24:58.356 a different atmosphere than I was expecting. But really it's 0:24:58.476 --> 0:25:02.196 just me enjoying pronouns. Like in Nine Nasty Words, I 0:25:02.276 --> 0:25:04.396 enjoyed profanity. That's what this book is. 0:25:04.916 --> 0:25:09.196 But you so tell us, tell us the problem with you. 0:25:09.196 --> 0:25:11.436 You is a problem. I don't mean that you all 0:25:11.476 --> 0:25:14.316 are a problem. Oh there was some Black English too, 0:25:15.996 --> 0:25:19.076 We will get there. That was silly. So it used 0:25:19.116 --> 0:25:22.876 to be yeah, exactly exactly, Thou Malcolm as opposed to 0:25:22.996 --> 0:25:25.756 you in the audience. That's how English is supposed to be. 0:25:26.436 --> 0:25:29.556 Thou art sitting in a chair. You are sitting. To 0:25:29.596 --> 0:25:31.276 be honest, with the lighting, I can't tell what you're 0:25:31.276 --> 0:25:33.356 sitting in, but I presume they are chairs, and so 0:25:33.876 --> 0:25:37.636 thou and you. You're supposed to have singular and then 0:25:37.636 --> 0:25:40.956 a plural one. In early Middle English and before there 0:25:41.036 --> 0:25:43.676 was a duel. So if it's just you too, then 0:25:43.676 --> 0:25:47.716 it was yeat and so thou, yeat and you, And 0:25:47.756 --> 0:25:50.876 then they had case forms thou if it's subject, thee. 0:25:50.916 --> 0:25:53.956 If it's an object, you was the object form. Ye 0:25:54.196 --> 0:25:57.036 was the subject form like here yea and then yeat 0:25:57.196 --> 0:25:59.636 didn't do that, but the possessive of yeat. If you 0:25:59.636 --> 0:26:03.356 wanted to say, you two's book, ink book, get that 0:26:03.556 --> 0:26:06.596 and so got it wrong. No, ink was the object 0:26:06.596 --> 0:26:09.636 form yeat and then ink. So I've done it all 0:26:09.676 --> 0:26:12.236 for you too, my children, I've done it all for ink. 0:26:12.356 --> 0:26:14.836 Inkor was the possessive. So you had all of these 0:26:14.956 --> 0:26:18.436 U forms and everything's chugging along, and today all we 0:26:18.476 --> 0:26:20.756 have is you, not even ye and you, just you. 0:26:21.316 --> 0:26:24.356 Thou is gone, know thee just you? It all just 0:26:24.516 --> 0:26:26.356 falls away now is the one we miss. It's like 0:26:26.356 --> 0:26:28.756 I had a disease. Yeah, that was the one we miss. 0:26:28.836 --> 0:26:31.156 We need thou, we need that we need it back 0:26:31.276 --> 0:26:34.916 right now, but now we can't. We can't do it now. 0:26:35.316 --> 0:26:39.836 So let's convince us about why we need to have 0:26:39.956 --> 0:26:40.516 thou back. 0:26:41.236 --> 0:26:43.436 Well, if you think about it, if you're going from 0:26:43.436 --> 0:26:47.276 English to almost any language you're likely to learn. Notice 0:26:47.276 --> 0:26:49.196 the first thing you learn is that there's something like 0:26:49.476 --> 0:26:52.956 dot and then there's some plural form. You never learned 0:26:52.956 --> 0:26:55.076 that the word for you is the same both in 0:26:55.116 --> 0:26:56.636 the singular. If there's a chart in front of you, 0:26:56.796 --> 0:26:59.876 the singular and the plural. That's not how languages work. 0:27:00.156 --> 0:27:03.276 And so all over Europe this is preserved. This difference 0:27:03.356 --> 0:27:06.076 is preserved. There are different spheres of influence that it 0:27:06.156 --> 0:27:08.556 has in different languages and at different times. But if 0:27:08.636 --> 0:27:11.236 it's Rush, it's supposed to be THEE and lie. You 0:27:11.276 --> 0:27:13.516 don't have lee used for everything. You don't have THEE 0:27:13.596 --> 0:27:16.796 use for everything. English is different in that way. English 0:27:16.876 --> 0:27:21.636 is a very odd language in certain corners of its being. 0:27:21.916 --> 0:27:24.876 And to tell the truth, it's it's obscure. We need 0:27:25.196 --> 0:27:27.356 a singular versus a plural form. And we try to 0:27:27.396 --> 0:27:30.836 create a plural form by saying y'all or use or 0:27:30.916 --> 0:27:34.756 yen's and we're told that that's just funny. It's just slang. 0:27:35.036 --> 0:27:38.236 It smells like fish or bubblegum or marijuana. It's not 0:27:38.676 --> 0:27:41.476 it's not a real word. And yet all we're trying 0:27:41.516 --> 0:27:43.716 to do is be a normal language. 0:27:44.236 --> 0:27:48.116 So what's your preference here? There's two there's two parallel 0:27:48.156 --> 0:27:49.756 strends of argument here, and I want to figure out 0:27:49.756 --> 0:27:52.716 which side you're on. So you originally is the plural, 0:27:53.636 --> 0:27:57.716 that is the singular singular. What has happened is that 0:27:58.116 --> 0:28:02.036 you has come to encompass both, and we've developed these 0:28:02.036 --> 0:28:08.556 colloquial forms y'all, et cetera, to take up the plural position, 0:28:08.876 --> 0:28:12.596 and we we've moved you to the singular. Do you 0:28:12.716 --> 0:28:15.796 think you should remain the singular or should you be 0:28:15.916 --> 0:28:17.716 moved back into the plural position? 0:28:19.316 --> 0:28:22.436 I understand. I'd like to see thou come back. I 0:28:22.476 --> 0:28:25.116 think we need thou. There was nothing wrong with it. 0:28:25.116 --> 0:28:29.156 It's just like German, do we need thou? The problem 0:28:29.196 --> 0:28:32.356 is that Thou sounds antique. Thou sounds like somebody in 0:28:32.396 --> 0:28:35.236 a periwig who's about to die of yellow fever because 0:28:35.276 --> 0:28:37.756 it's so far back. But if we bring in you, 0:28:37.796 --> 0:28:41.836 then we have to accept y'all as legitimate, or you 0:28:41.956 --> 0:28:45.076 guys or use And that's really tough too, because of 0:28:45.156 --> 0:28:47.356 the aforesaid odors of those words. 0:28:47.956 --> 0:28:49.196 Why did I was thinking of? 0:28:49.236 --> 0:28:49.436 You know? 0:28:50.236 --> 0:28:52.876 So if someone wrote the hymn how great Thou art today, 0:28:52.876 --> 0:28:53.836 it would be how great you. 0:28:53.836 --> 0:28:54.836 Are, how great you are? 0:28:54.996 --> 0:28:59.436 And say it's not it's not as good God to thee, 0:28:59.756 --> 0:29:04.956 how great you are you are? It doesn't work. 0:29:05.636 --> 0:29:10.916 That was great for art, yeah, but art thou. But 0:29:10.996 --> 0:29:12.836 it would be hard to use out on the street, 0:29:12.916 --> 0:29:15.396 I think, do I say it in the book? No, 0:29:15.476 --> 0:29:19.356 that was about something else. You could not say thou naked? 0:29:20.116 --> 0:29:22.716 You know it just it wouldn't seem quite right. It 0:29:22.836 --> 0:29:26.156 was I have to use you. 0:29:26.596 --> 0:29:29.156 But no, you've said the problems with both positions. But 0:29:29.676 --> 0:29:31.076 come on, you're not answering my question. 0:29:31.356 --> 0:29:33.796 Try if you had to. 0:29:33.916 --> 0:29:36.716 If I make you languages are and you get to 0:29:36.796 --> 0:29:40.716 push you to the singular a pro position and either 0:29:40.796 --> 0:29:48.956 reinstate thou or or establish use and y'all, which what 0:29:49.036 --> 0:29:50.036 which move were you making? 0:29:50.196 --> 0:29:52.676 If I were the czar, like if I could do 0:29:52.756 --> 0:29:57.556 an executive order, and yeah, I would, you would be 0:29:57.636 --> 0:30:00.396 in the singular and I would enforce that you all 0:30:00.636 --> 0:30:03.156 was more widely accepted. I would say that the Wall 0:30:03.156 --> 0:30:05.676 Street Journal has to start allowing you all, and it 0:30:05.716 --> 0:30:08.236 has to start being taught in school with a teacher 0:30:08.276 --> 0:30:10.716 with a stick at a black That's that's the way 0:30:10.716 --> 0:30:13.396 I would do it Already. When I teach about language, 0:30:13.396 --> 0:30:15.036 I say it's going to be I U he she 0:30:15.756 --> 0:30:18.356 we y'all. They I always say that because you need 0:30:18.636 --> 0:30:20.196 you need a y'all. Yeah. That center. 0:30:20.316 --> 0:30:21.796 One of the things that it had not occurred to 0:30:21.796 --> 0:30:24.836 me until I read that chapter was that in the South, 0:30:26.116 --> 0:30:30.236 y'all is only is the plural, that is to say, 0:30:30.636 --> 0:30:32.956 and if it is, if it's addressed to a person 0:30:33.236 --> 0:30:36.156 you're invoking. Isn't that nice to see in others? I 0:30:36.236 --> 0:30:38.636 hadn't realized it. So if I go to the South, 0:30:38.676 --> 0:30:41.956 then I say, well, ye, that's what y'all think, and 0:30:42.036 --> 0:30:44.956 I mean just you, Yeah, I've committed a violation. 0:30:45.476 --> 0:30:48.116 Yeah, because they don't use it to mean the singular. 0:30:48.156 --> 0:30:50.796 But when they say it's one person, you're at a 0:30:50.876 --> 0:30:54.436 seven eleven and somebody says, y'all come back, that doesn't 0:30:54.476 --> 0:30:58.116 mean y'all that one person right there. It means it's 0:30:58.116 --> 0:31:00.356 implying that there's somebody out there in the car or 0:31:00.396 --> 0:31:04.276 something which is is the following. It's a politeness strategy. 0:31:04.476 --> 0:31:07.316 So with du and VU, you can address a single 0:31:07.356 --> 0:31:10.196 person as VU as if they're people, and so you're 0:31:10.236 --> 0:31:13.676 not hitting the person like this. If you say y'all 0:31:13.716 --> 0:31:16.676 come back now, you're kind of saying voo come back now, 0:31:16.756 --> 0:31:19.636 You're you're taking away the directness to say you you 0:31:19.676 --> 0:31:21.796 one individual, I hope you come back and buy another 0:31:21.836 --> 0:31:25.636 slim gym. It's a little direct as opposed to y'all 0:31:25.676 --> 0:31:29.076 come back. It's a very courtly thing that y'all. 0:31:29.276 --> 0:31:31.196 I want to go back to something you said. Well, 0:31:31.236 --> 0:31:35.316 we need to distinguish between the plural and singular you. 0:31:36.156 --> 0:31:38.916 But what problem does it create for as when we can't. 0:31:39.876 --> 0:31:41.516 Is it just a lack of specificity. 0:31:41.796 --> 0:31:44.756 It's just that you need to pause and clean something up. 0:31:45.116 --> 0:31:47.596 And you'd rather not have to imagine never having to 0:31:47.596 --> 0:31:49.436 say I don't mean you all, I mean just you, 0:31:49.796 --> 0:31:51.876 or I mean just you not you all over there. 0:31:52.356 --> 0:31:56.636 There are larger tragedies, but nevertheless, that is one of 0:31:56.676 --> 0:32:00.396 those things where oh, that is one of those things 0:32:00.636 --> 0:32:03.236 where we have we have a ding like for example, 0:32:03.276 --> 0:32:06.156 in French, you're driving a rental car and you're in 0:32:06.196 --> 0:32:08.516 a big hurry and all the other cars are parked 0:32:08.516 --> 0:32:11.356 in a line, and you pull into a space and 0:32:11.476 --> 0:32:13.356 you don't really park it right, and the butt of 0:32:13.396 --> 0:32:15.516 the car is kind of pushing out, so you run 0:32:15.556 --> 0:32:17.876 down into the little hut and you say, I'm sorry, 0:32:17.916 --> 0:32:20.636 but my car is sticking out. There's no way to 0:32:20.676 --> 0:32:22.876 put it that way. In French, nothing can stick out. 0:32:22.956 --> 0:32:25.596 You can say I didn't park properly, you can say 0:32:25.596 --> 0:32:27.716 that the row is uneven, but if you try to 0:32:27.716 --> 0:32:30.556 say the car is sticking out and I'm sorry, they 0:32:30.556 --> 0:32:32.716 don't have it. Now. Does that mean that it's hard 0:32:32.756 --> 0:32:34.716 to be French? I doubt it, but it would be 0:32:34.836 --> 0:32:36.596 nice if they had that word. It would be nice 0:32:36.636 --> 0:32:38.556 if we had a thou, or if we could use 0:32:38.876 --> 0:32:40.876 y'all in the same way. Yeah. 0:32:40.956 --> 0:32:42.676 So what I would like to see is the country 0:32:42.716 --> 0:32:46.956 divided on this question, so there's a there would be 0:32:47.076 --> 0:32:49.556 Thou districts, and then they would be y'all. 0:32:49.716 --> 0:32:50.756 That would be adorable. 0:32:50.876 --> 0:32:55.716 And then, because I don't like y'all to be honest, 0:32:55.836 --> 0:32:56.636 I do like thou. 0:32:56.716 --> 0:32:56.996 Huh. 0:32:57.116 --> 0:32:58.476 I would like Thou to come. 0:32:58.356 --> 0:33:04.876 Back, Thou, Thou art, Thou art reading. It just sounds 0:33:04.916 --> 0:33:07.636 like somebody who died one hundred and fifty years ago, 0:33:07.756 --> 0:33:09.116 but I could get used to it. 0:33:09.276 --> 0:33:13.316 Is that This is another interesting language question, though, is 0:33:13.316 --> 0:33:15.676 that because is that going to be as true for 0:33:15.756 --> 0:33:19.156 our children? Well, our children had the same associations with Thou. 0:33:19.596 --> 0:33:23.876 I mean once, why do I think I sang that him? 0:33:23.916 --> 0:33:26.076 For a reason? I grew up singing that him all 0:33:26.076 --> 0:33:29.636 of my associations without biblical. If we move into us 0:33:29.676 --> 0:33:35.756 into a world in which people's association with religious practice 0:33:36.076 --> 0:33:39.676 is vanishing, then doesn't that free us up to go 0:33:39.756 --> 0:33:42.836 back and pick up a lot of that stuff. 0:33:43.196 --> 0:33:46.756 It's possible. It's funny you say religious because I forgot something, 0:33:46.796 --> 0:33:49.436 which is that I went to a Quaker school, Friends 0:33:49.436 --> 0:33:52.796 Select in Philadelphia in the late seventies, and back then 0:33:52.956 --> 0:33:56.916 there was the last cohort of teachers, Quaker teachers who 0:33:56.956 --> 0:34:01.916 were still using THEE and thy and in natural speech, 0:34:01.956 --> 0:34:04.596 the ones who were super Quaker as in dressing Quaker. 0:34:04.876 --> 0:34:06.716 And I remember there was this one teacher who would 0:34:06.756 --> 0:34:08.716 come and, you know, look at your paper and say, 0:34:08.796 --> 0:34:11.036 don't get to put thy name on thy paper. And 0:34:11.116 --> 0:34:14.036 he meant it straight, he didn't mean it ironically, And 0:34:14.116 --> 0:34:16.076 you know part of why I don't like that, And 0:34:16.116 --> 0:34:17.756 I never thought about this. You're making me think about 0:34:17.796 --> 0:34:20.116 a lot of things I haven't thought about. Because one 0:34:20.196 --> 0:34:22.676 day he decided to take a long trip in a 0:34:22.716 --> 0:34:26.036 canoe and he happily, you know, pulled out into the 0:34:26.036 --> 0:34:28.036 Delaware River, and you was talking about when he was 0:34:28.036 --> 0:34:29.636 going to come back, and no one ever saw that 0:34:29.716 --> 0:34:34.076 man again. And I must admit that I associate thou 0:34:34.156 --> 0:34:39.596 with that man, and that is much to arbitrary. So 0:34:39.796 --> 0:34:45.356 I can't laughing at this man's demise, but I need 0:34:45.396 --> 0:34:48.156 to stop that. I would enjoy their being thou, but 0:34:48.156 --> 0:34:50.916 I'm trying to imagine it imposed on a whole society, 0:34:51.276 --> 0:34:53.676 and I cannot see my ten and thirteen year old 0:34:54.036 --> 0:34:57.436 feeling differently about it. But then again, there are aspects 0:34:57.436 --> 0:34:59.436 of them that I may never know. I'll ask them 0:34:59.436 --> 0:35:00.356 next time I see them. 0:35:00.636 --> 0:35:03.516 And what about the you mentioned this in I believe 0:35:03.636 --> 0:35:08.196 in passing the English use of one, you do yes one? 0:35:08.196 --> 0:35:12.836 The English uppercrust resolve this problem by if I say 0:35:12.916 --> 0:35:15.276 one in the eight way that English one doesn't think 0:35:15.316 --> 0:35:16.036 that does one? 0:35:16.236 --> 0:35:16.476 Right? 0:35:16.556 --> 0:35:19.236 What am I doing? Am I explicitly freeing up you 0:35:19.356 --> 0:35:20.676 to be in the plural form? Is that? 0:35:20.716 --> 0:35:24.756 What I'm doing? Well? In that case, we use you colloquially, well, 0:35:24.916 --> 0:35:26.716 why suddenly can I not talk? And he had a 0:35:26.756 --> 0:35:30.636 stroke that night? You colloquially, but we would actually say 0:35:30.636 --> 0:35:32.756 you can't do that, can you? And so you gets 0:35:32.796 --> 0:35:36.756 dragged even into that one usage which ended up replacing 0:35:36.796 --> 0:35:39.236 it was originally a word mon, which was not man, 0:35:39.276 --> 0:35:41.796 but it was mon, and then mon just dropped away. 0:35:41.836 --> 0:35:45.236 Everything drops away in English like autumn leaves for some reason. 0:35:45.276 --> 0:35:47.876 But you have the one, and you're saying, does that allow. 0:35:47.956 --> 0:35:51.596 Exactly why they're doing that? Why why does the English 0:35:52.036 --> 0:35:54.156 upper class use one instead of you? 0:35:54.436 --> 0:35:57.036 Because you was overstretched, because not only is it used 0:35:57.036 --> 0:35:58.996 in the singular and the plural, but you also use 0:35:59.036 --> 0:36:03.796 it for this indefinite. Real Germanic languages, normal European languages 0:36:04.076 --> 0:36:07.556 have some dedicated pronoun, as we call it, for the indefinite. 0:36:07.636 --> 0:36:09.516 That's one thing that a pronoun should do. That book 0:36:09.516 --> 0:36:12.596 shold have an extra chapter. In Old English it was mon, 0:36:12.996 --> 0:36:16.236 then mon shortened to muh, and so you would say, 0:36:16.516 --> 0:36:18.516 you know, you gotta do it, and you would say, 0:36:18.636 --> 0:36:21.156 muh gotta do it. That's not very accurate Middle English, 0:36:21.156 --> 0:36:24.196 but you get my point. And then it just that 0:36:24.316 --> 0:36:27.676 muh flew away and you ended up being dragged in 0:36:27.756 --> 0:36:30.156 for that too. We work that little word so hard 0:36:30.436 --> 0:36:32.876 it's a miracle that we don't trip over our linguistic 0:36:32.916 --> 0:36:36.196 shoelaces with it more. But languages aren't usually like that. 0:36:36.236 --> 0:36:38.556 There's one I know of in New Guinea. It's called barrack, 0:36:38.836 --> 0:36:41.196 and all they have is I we than you. And 0:36:41.236 --> 0:36:43.596 then there's one word that means he she it, and 0:36:43.636 --> 0:36:46.316 they one word like quack. It's not quack, but it's 0:36:46.356 --> 0:36:49.636 just one thing. But we're more like that than we 0:36:49.676 --> 0:36:52.596 are like the European languages that were actually related whips. 0:36:52.596 --> 0:36:54.156 It's sorry to be a dog with a bone here, 0:36:54.196 --> 0:36:56.756 But why don't we all use the English. 0:36:56.396 --> 0:37:00.116 One in order to give you a break? 0:37:00.676 --> 0:37:03.876 Yeah, because if its says or to give one a break. 0:37:06.116 --> 0:37:09.076 But we can't because if you use one in that way, 0:37:09.196 --> 0:37:12.236 you sound like you have a big mustachio and you 0:37:12.316 --> 0:37:14.996 walk with a cane and you're in black and white. 0:37:15.356 --> 0:37:17.756 In an old movie played by an actor named c 0:37:17.956 --> 0:37:21.956 Aubrey Smith, one mustn't do that. It's too high. 0:37:22.396 --> 0:37:24.356 As a kid, we would make fun of this because 0:37:25.396 --> 0:37:27.756 my father would. I think I think he reduced this 0:37:27.836 --> 0:37:31.476 locution and that he abandoned it because you're trapped once 0:37:31.516 --> 0:37:35.436 you start with the one. One one doesn't think that 0:37:35.556 --> 0:37:38.156 one should do that does one? And then you realize 0:37:38.196 --> 0:37:40.836 this is an endless stream of ones in your future. 0:37:41.236 --> 0:37:44.996 Or Fats Waller saying one never knows, do one? But 0:37:45.116 --> 0:37:48.316 that was arch he was. He's saying that while he's 0:37:48.356 --> 0:37:51.356 knocking back the gin. That was funny. In his real life, 0:37:51.356 --> 0:37:53.916 he certainly wouldn't have said, you know, one never knows, 0:37:54.236 --> 0:37:57.996 and so one, for arbitrary reasons is marked, and so 0:37:58.236 --> 0:38:01.116 it has that upper crust meaning, and most of us 0:38:01.436 --> 0:38:04.676 our only upper crust on occasion, and so we need 0:38:04.716 --> 0:38:07.716 something more casual. And it ends up being yeah, poor 0:38:07.796 --> 0:38:09.076 little you all the time. 0:38:09.236 --> 0:38:15.916 Yeah, it's a heartbreaking chapter. It's we'll be right back 0:38:15.916 --> 0:38:32.476 with more of my conversation with John mccorter. We have questions. 0:38:33.076 --> 0:38:34.716 Some of these questions are really good. 0:38:35.916 --> 0:38:37.116 The questions are always fun. 0:38:37.316 --> 0:38:39.836 How does English compare with other languages in terms of 0:38:39.916 --> 0:38:43.956 words on the move, the shifting of words meaning over time. 0:38:45.516 --> 0:38:47.756 Words are on the move. That was the title of 0:38:47.996 --> 0:38:50.796 one of my books. Actually, words are on the move 0:38:50.836 --> 0:38:53.116 all the time in all languages. Some of them are 0:38:53.116 --> 0:38:55.716 moving faster than others. But there's no such thing as 0:38:55.716 --> 0:38:58.716 a language where the words just stay where they are, 0:38:59.116 --> 0:39:01.276 And it can be hard to process that the words 0:39:01.316 --> 0:39:03.556 are on the move because it usually not always, but 0:39:03.716 --> 0:39:07.956 usually happens very slowly. But words meanings are always kind 0:39:07.996 --> 0:39:13.956 of morphing. Obnoxious used to mean vulnerable to harm. And 0:39:13.996 --> 0:39:17.676 so don't render yourself obnoxious by wearing too few clothes 0:39:18.076 --> 0:39:22.716 to the jousting tournament, or that's not the you take 0:39:22.756 --> 0:39:26.396 my point. So it only came to mean noxious because 0:39:26.436 --> 0:39:29.196 it sounded like noxious, and so we now use it 0:39:29.196 --> 0:39:31.476 to mean that. If you look in a grammar guide 0:39:31.476 --> 0:39:34.476 in about nineteen hundred, there's always some person, the kind 0:39:34.476 --> 0:39:37.196 of person who says one and has that mustache, who 0:39:37.236 --> 0:39:40.396 is complaining. People are using obnoxious to mean annoying, when 0:39:40.436 --> 0:39:43.556 really it's supposed to mean subject to harm. Sniff sniff. 0:39:43.796 --> 0:39:45.516 We're gonna have to deal with this. This is a 0:39:45.556 --> 0:39:48.436 sign of the lack of educator. And so that is 0:39:48.476 --> 0:39:51.756 what happens to all words. And that's true in Japanese, Hungarian, Tahitian. 0:39:51.796 --> 0:39:53.436 There's no language where that's not happening. 0:39:53.676 --> 0:39:55.156 Someone would show me. I don't know if it's true 0:39:55.156 --> 0:39:58.956 as a Canadian that in Quebec. The French that is 0:39:58.996 --> 0:40:03.836 spoken is archaic French. So why is Quebecua French not 0:40:04.036 --> 0:40:07.596 moving at the same pace as French French. So that 0:40:07.636 --> 0:40:11.996 does suggest a different different languages move at different rates. 0:40:12.956 --> 0:40:15.716 That's a very good question, and the answer to it 0:40:15.796 --> 0:40:20.476 is that Parisian French is one thing, the French of Quebec, 0:40:20.516 --> 0:40:23.356 and it's actually very similar to Cajun French is a 0:40:23.396 --> 0:40:27.476 different It is a different grouping of dialects, and so 0:40:27.516 --> 0:40:30.876 you can say that these things are older. But the 0:40:30.916 --> 0:40:33.516 thing is that those dialects have changed a great deal 0:40:33.916 --> 0:40:36.236 since they were moved over to Quebec. And the Quebec 0:40:36.316 --> 0:40:39.156 dialect is very different than what it would have been 0:40:39.276 --> 0:40:42.276 in say, the late sixteen hundreds and the seventeen hundreds. 0:40:42.276 --> 0:40:44.636 It's just that you can still see the likenesses. It's 0:40:44.676 --> 0:40:47.996 not that Quebec stayed the wall. This was and so 0:40:48.036 --> 0:40:51.076 all languages move along. And the truth is, I have 0:40:51.156 --> 0:40:55.276 not done a study of the Jual spoken in for example, Montreal. 0:40:55.556 --> 0:40:57.836 I'm sure that that variety has changed more in the 0:40:57.876 --> 0:41:02.316 past three hundred years than French standard French in Paris, 0:41:02.396 --> 0:41:06.276 because written languages change more slowly. So if a language 0:41:06.276 --> 0:41:08.756 is just allowed to do what it wants to do. 0:41:09.236 --> 0:41:12.396 Some language in a rainforest spoken by indigenous people, it's 0:41:12.436 --> 0:41:17.236 never written down. That language moves along considerably, such that 0:41:17.316 --> 0:41:19.396 you might even have a little bit of a problem 0:41:19.476 --> 0:41:22.676 understanding your great great grandparents. Once it's on the page 0:41:23.076 --> 0:41:25.316 and your brain is kind of on writing, as I 0:41:25.356 --> 0:41:27.756 put it, and you think that the real language is written, 0:41:28.116 --> 0:41:30.836 then it tends to slow language change down. So what 0:41:30.916 --> 0:41:34.316 we know is how language changes where when they the 0:41:34.396 --> 0:41:37.276 new they comes in, we're thinking, good lord, what happened? 0:41:37.836 --> 0:41:40.916 That would not shock people as much if this were 0:41:40.916 --> 0:41:44.916 an unwritten language. Language changes very quickly until it's yoked 0:41:44.956 --> 0:41:47.196 to the page, which is true of only about two 0:41:47.276 --> 0:41:50.156 hundred of the seven thousand languages that there are the 0:41:50.236 --> 0:41:52.556 idea that you think of the language in writing, and 0:41:52.556 --> 0:41:54.476 then you think of speaking as just a sloppy way 0:41:54.516 --> 0:41:56.396 of how it's done on the page. That's only a 0:41:56.596 --> 0:41:59.156 very few languages, and we happen to be speaking one 0:41:59.436 --> 0:42:03.076 normal human language gets to mind its own business, and 0:42:03.196 --> 0:42:05.116 so it's faster for them. 0:42:05.156 --> 0:42:08.236 What are your thoughts on Black American English being adopted 0:42:08.236 --> 0:42:11.636 by younger generations in the slang they use. I'm assuming 0:42:11.676 --> 0:42:15.676 this question is about by younger and in some cases 0:42:15.716 --> 0:42:17.356 non black generations. 0:42:17.636 --> 0:42:20.516 I think it's great, and I know that there is 0:42:20.556 --> 0:42:23.916 a strain of thought that says that non black people 0:42:23.996 --> 0:42:28.756 are stealing Black English features and appropriating them and that 0:42:28.996 --> 0:42:32.036 there should be a line. But for one, there could 0:42:32.076 --> 0:42:35.996 never be that line. That line couldn't happen, especially with 0:42:36.076 --> 0:42:38.476 the mainstreaming of hip hop, and it's getting to the 0:42:38.476 --> 0:42:41.596 point where you can be a thoroughly mature person and 0:42:41.636 --> 0:42:45.916 not really remember when rap was listened to by basically 0:42:45.956 --> 0:42:48.596 all kids. That happened really in the nineties. But once 0:42:48.636 --> 0:42:51.076 you've got that and you've got that music in people's ears, 0:42:51.596 --> 0:42:53.716 and just in general, I think that it's a sign 0:42:53.876 --> 0:42:56.476 that there is less of a color line than there 0:42:56.556 --> 0:42:58.556 used to be, and we all know that we still 0:42:58.556 --> 0:43:01.196 have work to do. But there was a different time. 0:43:01.476 --> 0:43:04.276 There was nineteen fifty and then there was nineteen eighty, 0:43:04.356 --> 0:43:07.436 which was very different from today. And I think that 0:43:07.716 --> 0:43:11.956 this business of supposing that non black people aren't going 0:43:12.036 --> 0:43:14.516 to borrow what is probably the most vibrant slang in 0:43:14.556 --> 0:43:17.676 the United States, it will never happen. It's actually a 0:43:17.676 --> 0:43:20.436 good sign that it is happening, and it really is 0:43:20.476 --> 0:43:21.836 at the point where if you're going to look at 0:43:21.836 --> 0:43:25.396 how modern English is changing, which is mostly the words, 0:43:25.676 --> 0:43:30.396 two times out of three it comes from either black 0:43:29.956 --> 0:43:35.596 black slang or gay black slang. That's a major source 0:43:35.956 --> 0:43:37.956 of our new words. And really it's a word I 0:43:37.956 --> 0:43:42.516 try to avoid two words holistic because it just makes 0:43:42.556 --> 0:43:45.916 everybody happy to hear the word holistic and also the 0:43:45.956 --> 0:43:48.836 word dynamic. It's dynamic. What the hell does that mean? 0:43:49.076 --> 0:43:52.516 But yeah, I think that black English jumping into mainstream 0:43:52.556 --> 0:43:56.916 English is quite dynamic, and I enjoy watching it. So yeah, 0:43:56.916 --> 0:43:58.956 I'm not giving the right answer because I know there 0:43:58.956 --> 0:44:02.276 are people who think that it's appropriation. That's complicated though, 0:44:02.276 --> 0:44:06.276 and I think that's an over application of the appropriation concept. 0:44:06.316 --> 0:44:07.916 I think, yeah, we have. 0:44:07.876 --> 0:44:10.436 To end sadly and ask you one nice question, and 0:44:10.476 --> 0:44:12.876 that is one of my it's my favorite question for 0:44:12.916 --> 0:44:18.556 someone like you. Let's imagine you were made language are 0:44:19.556 --> 0:44:24.476 of America with absolute powers. I want you to tell 0:44:24.516 --> 0:44:31.316 me the the the three language fixes you would impose 0:44:31.356 --> 0:44:35.076 on all of us. We've done you, we want you 0:44:35.116 --> 0:44:37.316 want y'all, We've given that to you. I want three 0:44:37.356 --> 0:44:38.516 new ones and then we're done. 0:44:40.316 --> 0:44:42.876 I want people to stop saying it is what it is, 0:44:43.236 --> 0:44:48.556 because I find that the chilliest, most dismissive expression that's 0:44:48.596 --> 0:44:53.396 got the stop. There's something, there's something pickier. You can't 0:44:53.436 --> 0:44:56.796 just walk into this Roman start yelling. That's how the 0:44:56.836 --> 0:45:00.676 sentence should be. You can't simply walk into this. You 0:45:00.716 --> 0:45:04.716 can't just walk But everybody says you just can't walk 0:45:04.756 --> 0:45:08.756 into this roman start yelling. That is now ordinary American 0:45:08.756 --> 0:45:10.636 and English, and I have no right to have any 0:45:10.636 --> 0:45:12.916 problem with it, but it's it's kind of like you 0:45:13.316 --> 0:45:16.156 wanting the order in the monopoly directions. It doesn't make 0:45:16.196 --> 0:45:19.436 any sense. It's you can't just walk in, but people 0:45:19.476 --> 0:45:21.956 say just can't all the time. There was an episode 0:45:21.956 --> 0:45:24.076 of The Lucy Show where somebody did it, and so 0:45:24.196 --> 0:45:27.436 I know that it's not new, but it really it 0:45:27.556 --> 0:45:31.596 hurts me. And then let's see what else. This is 0:45:31.676 --> 0:45:34.516 one that I really didn't like when I started hearing 0:45:34.556 --> 0:45:37.836 it in the nineties. Yeah yeah, yeah, people say when 0:45:37.876 --> 0:45:40.876 they're having a conversation, they'll say, oh yeah, yeah yeah, 0:45:40.916 --> 0:45:43.516 but they also make it in an orange color. You're 0:45:43.516 --> 0:45:45.676 trying to say something, they say yeah, yeah yeah, But 0:45:45.996 --> 0:45:48.356 and it sounds pushy to me, kind of like you 0:45:48.556 --> 0:45:51.516 shut up and that's not what they mean. But to me, 0:45:51.596 --> 0:45:54.916 it's just one one yeah. Would do. What they're trying 0:45:54.956 --> 0:45:58.236 to do is take their turn in the conversation and 0:45:58.276 --> 0:46:00.316 they say yeah, yeah, yeah, in the same way that 0:46:00.396 --> 0:46:03.156 now both you and I probably use exclamation points in 0:46:03.196 --> 0:46:06.196 our emails when we're not exclaiming anything. It's kind be 0:46:06.276 --> 0:46:08.876 there in a second game. And so that that has 0:46:08.876 --> 0:46:11.516 been And so now if you want to really exclaim, 0:46:11.516 --> 0:46:14.116 if you want to say something like the tangerine is 0:46:14.156 --> 0:46:17.876 the best flavor, then you have to use two exclamation points. Yeah. 0:46:17.916 --> 0:46:20.916 So yeah, yeah, yeah is kind of long for what 0:46:21.116 --> 0:46:23.916 used to be just yeah, But it's just this kind 0:46:23.916 --> 0:46:26.876 of natural that it's kind of like, you know, sections 0:46:26.876 --> 0:46:29.836 of DNA replicating yeah, and you know that's that was 0:46:29.836 --> 0:46:30.676 a weird analogy. 0:46:30.716 --> 0:46:35.636 But yeah, no one uses more exclamation marks points in 0:46:35.636 --> 0:46:37.636 in email than me. You know this? 0:46:37.716 --> 0:46:38.556 Are you really doing this? 0:46:38.996 --> 0:46:39.396 Oh? 0:46:40.356 --> 0:46:41.716 It's so exaerine. 0:46:41.956 --> 0:46:44.276 It's to the point now where I think that with 0:46:44.596 --> 0:46:47.676 people I'm regularly corresponding with, if I only use two, 0:46:48.276 --> 0:46:51.636 they'll think that I'm mad at them. And so why 0:46:51.756 --> 0:46:55.556 is not so cold today? He's cut back to two 0:46:55.596 --> 0:46:58.716 exclamation So I gotta I gotta like three and four 0:46:59.196 --> 0:46:59.756 that Saturday. 0:47:00.756 --> 0:47:02.676 That's right, And all that is is that you're being 0:47:03.116 --> 0:47:06.196 cheery and polite. Yeah, that was not the way we 0:47:06.236 --> 0:47:08.796 wrote emails thirty years ago or even twenty. But now 0:47:08.796 --> 0:47:10.996 I'm doing the exclamation points because I'm thinking if I 0:47:11.076 --> 0:47:13.476 just have a period, it makes it look like I'm angry, 0:47:13.836 --> 0:47:15.956 and that's how punctuation change. 0:47:16.076 --> 0:47:19.516 You might be you, but you might well be angry John. 0:47:20.956 --> 0:47:24.116 I have my days, but I would disguise it by 0:47:24.196 --> 0:47:26.356 using a meaningless exclamation boy. 0:47:27.276 --> 0:47:30.196 All right, one one last one for the road. 0:47:30.556 --> 0:47:34.236 So it was you just can't It was yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:47:34.276 --> 0:47:36.476 And then there was the what was the first thing? 0:47:36.476 --> 0:47:37.956 Is what it is? And it is what it is. 0:47:37.996 --> 0:47:40.156 People have got to stop that. So I would I 0:47:40.196 --> 0:47:43.836 would have those three and then maybe yes, it's a. 0:47:43.836 --> 0:47:46.116 Correct response to it is what it is. It isn't 0:47:46.116 --> 0:47:49.196 what it is? Is that what? Yeah? But yeah yeah yeah, 0:47:49.236 --> 0:47:50.556 but it isn't what it is. 0:47:52.476 --> 0:47:55.556 In this case, and so you can't say that. And 0:47:55.636 --> 0:47:59.316 what they're really saying is stop. It's kind of like yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:47:59.396 --> 0:48:02.236 it's stop talking about that like it is what it is, 0:48:02.276 --> 0:48:04.196 and therefore there's no point in dwelling on it, and 0:48:04.236 --> 0:48:08.356 now let's talk about RFKA Junior or something. And what 0:48:08.476 --> 0:48:11.476 I wanted to talk about was the tangerine ice cream. 0:48:11.636 --> 0:48:13.636 So that's that's how that goes. 0:48:14.796 --> 0:48:19.396 John, This has been great fun. This is a wonderful book. 0:48:19.996 --> 0:48:22.596 You should all go and get it and give it 0:48:22.836 --> 0:48:25.956 to your friends as well. And thank you for joining 0:48:25.996 --> 0:48:32.516 us tonight, and thank you Jones, thank you Malca, thanks 0:48:32.556 --> 0:48:38.116 for listening. Coming up on Revisionist History, an episode about Faces, 0:48:39.476 --> 0:48:45.356 an episode on raccoons, and another on English muffins. Revision's 0:48:45.356 --> 0:48:48.236 History is produced by Nina Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and 0:48:48.276 --> 0:48:52.276 Ben Adaph Haffrey. Our editor is Karen Chakerji, mixed and 0:48:52.316 --> 0:48:56.196 mastered by Sarah Buguerer, Engineered by Nina Bird Lawrence. Original 0:48:56.236 --> 0:48:59.996 score in music by Luis Kara. Our executive producer is 0:49:00.076 --> 0:49:06.396 Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nix and Gretacombe. I'm 0:49:06.396 --> 0:49:07.196 Malcolm Glappa.