Accessibly written, deeply researched, and appropriately critical, this book is a gem about the American city that has arguably had more of an effect on American speech than any other. The book could be profitably used in courses not solely focused on New York City (NYC), because it illustrates so many wide-ranging principles of historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and the relationship between language and place. Indeed, there are parts here that go beyond a ‘pop’ book that summarizes research, at times making novel arguments and connections not previously made.
The book moves through a number of perspectives, in terms of time, linguistic focus, and sociological aspects of the NYC population and mythos. The opening chapter sets the stage, entering the topic through the perception of New Yorkers as rude, and a short overview of the linguistic characteristics of NYC English (NYCE). Chapter 2, ‘New York vs. the rest of America’, traces the ‘fall’ of NYCE from prestige to stigma in ‘our collective imagination’ (69), focusing partially on the role that the discrimination against Jews and immigrants played in that process. It also traces how NYCE changes in popular media portrayals from status (Edward R. Murrow) to stigma (the villain).
Chapter 3, ‘On and off the map’, is a fascinating geographical and cultural history of the city and an outline of the ways that this geographical biography has shaped NYCE and English more generally. There are lots of little nuggets of etymological knowledge here. Chapter 4, ‘Bootlegged language’, outlines how language born in the cultural milieus of NYC, especially those relating to crime, swindling, and gangsters, leads to linguistic forms still widely used today, from phony to hustle. Chapter 5, ‘From Tin Pan Alley to hip-hop’, is one of my favorite chapters and ripe for using in a course, as it focuses on the ways that NYC and NYCE have been central to popular music for over a century, showing how the NYC music industry was often the vehicle for the spread of NYCE across the United States.
The author shifts gears a bit in chapter 6, ‘Code switching’, in which she focuses on the variety of languages and ‘non-standard’ varieties that abound in NYC, especially Spanish, Puerto Rican English, and African American Vernacular English. This chapter traces the multilingual and multiracial history of NYC and NYCE and outlines how schools discriminated and tried to eliminate such variation. This chapter is yet another that would serve to illustrate issues of prescriptivism and language ideologies in an introductory classroom.
‘A voice full of money,’ a marvelous title for chapter 7, essentially outlines the social stratification in NYCE through William Labov's department store study and various follow-up studies. It is a great read and more accessible than the original. There is a short final epilogue chapter that reviews some of the main themes and a loving description of the vitality and diversity that will continue the development of language in the city, ending appropriately, quoting a New Yorker tweeting ‘go f*ck yourself’.
