Non-Fiction: Language, Words, Freedom of the Press

I have been reading a couple of non-fiction works which have to do with language and freedom of the press – seems appropriate with the presidential debates looming on the horizon.

In Words on the Move, author John McWhorter points out that “one of the hardest things for a human being to shake is that language is something that is, when it is actually something always becoming.” His text provides an intriguing review for linguists and others interested in the topic of why “English won’t – and can’t – sit still,” but his descriptions become increasingly technical for the average reader. McWhorter does attempt to address this, for example, by comparing the mutability of language to the transformation of clouds or by explaining that dafter lead to dawter and eventually to daughter, although it no longer rhymes with laughter. He teaches at Columbia University and more examples from Words on the Move were featured recently on NPR.  McWhorter's work is informative, but even though our AP English students often have an assignment dealing with words and their origins, they are apt to be more engaged by related and shorter selections found in Ben Zimmer’s weekly “Word on the Street” from The Wall Street Journal. Today’s topic: “Captain Boycott and his Legacy.”

Indelible Ink by Richard Kluger is subtitled “The Trials of John Peter Zengler and the Birth of America’s Free Press.” Chronicling events in the 1730’s, this text provides a thoroughly researched and documented history, much like Kluger’s earlier published works.  In fact, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Ashes to Ashes, about the cigarette industry, and was twice a National Book Award finalist (for The Paper and for Simple Justice).  His writing about the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision, Simple Justice, was originally published in 1976 and revised and expanded in 2004; it remains a personal favorite (despite its length) and is a book that definitely impacted me at a young age.  I hope that our students have similar opportunities to reflect on themes detailed in Kluger’s Indelible Ink, including abuse of power, national security, and the need to prove that offending language was “false, malicious, seditious and scandalous.” Indelible Ink received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.