Rhetorical contents -- Paired essays -- Preface -- 1: Coming To Language -- Language basics and beginnings -- Language and thought / Susanne K Langer -- Language instinct / Steven Pinker -- Brief history of English / Paul Roberts -- Some personal beginnings -- Wordstruck / Eudora Welty -- Homemade education / Malcolm X -- Man that spelt knife was a fool / Johnny Connors -- Language of silence / Maxine Hong Kingston -- Talking in the new land / Edite Cunha Pedrosa -- 2: Some Words On Writing -- Getting Started -- Freewriting / Peter Elbow -- Finding the right words -- Simplicity / William Zinsser -- How to write with style / Kurt Vonnegut -- Selection, slanting, and charged language / Newman P Birk and Genevieve B Birk -- Revising the product -- Maker's eye: revising your own manuscript / Donald M Murray -- Writer / Richard Wilbur -- 3: Media And Advertising -- Making the news: journalism or entertainment? -- Journalese as a second tongue / John Leo -- TV news: all the world in pictures / Neil Postman and Steve Powers -- In depth, but shallowly / Dave Barry -- Dumbing down: TV talk-show talk / Tom Shachtman -- Remarking the news: journalism or bias? -- Collective bias / Charles G Russell and Paul Many -- Read all about it! (but don't believe it) / Caryl Rivers -- Terrorism: civilized and barbaric / Edward S Herman -- Two-headed monster / from the Columbia Journalism review -- Making consumers: advertising-manipulation or art? -- With these words I can sell you anything / William Lutz -- Language of advertising / Charles A O'Neill -- Case study: Advertising -- Printed noise / George F Will -- Euphemisms for the fat of the land / Diane White -- Word from our sponsor / Patricia Volk -- 4: Language Of Politics -- Propaganda: how it bends language -- How to detect propaganda / Institute for propaganda analysis -- Political double talk: how it bends minds -- Politics and the English language / George Orwell -- Words matter / Anthony Lewis -- Everyspeech / Robert Yoakum -- Next to of course god America I / E E Cummings -- Case study: Warspeak -- Dehumanizing people and euphemizing war / Haig A Bosmajian -- Wars, wimps and women: talking gender and thinking war / Carol Cohn -- When words go to war / Bella English -- Eleven ways of looking at the Gulf War / Arthur Asa Berger -- 5: Language And Cultural And Ethnic Identity -- What language is American? -- Bilingualism in America: English should be the only language / S I Hayakawa -- Viva Bilingualism / James Fallows -- Aria: a memoir of a bilingual childhood / Richard Rodriguez -- What do Americans cal themselves? -- Coloring lessons / David Updike -- African and American / Ellen Goodman -- Innocent and presumed ethnic / John Yemma -- Theme for English B / Langston Hughes -- Case study: Black English -- From Africa to the new world and into the space age / Geneva Smitherman -- What's wrong with black English / Rachel L Jones -- 6: Slurs, Stereotypes, Swears, And Free Speech -- What's politically correct? -- Bias-free language: some guidelines / Rosalie Maggio -- Word police / Michiko Kakutani -- What do we call others? -- Nigger: the meaning of a word / Gloria Naylor -- Heard any good Jews lately? / Thomas Friedmann -- Etymology of the international insult / Charles F Berlitz -- Defining the American Indian: a case study in the language of suppression / Haig A Bosmajian -- On being a cripple / Nancy Mairs -- Queer / Lillian Faderman -- Discrimination at large / Jennifer A Coleman -- Telephone conversation / Wole Soyinka -- What's dirty language? -- Mind your tongue, young man / Sandra Flahive Maurer -- What dirty words really mean / Dr Joyce Brothers -- Case study: freedom of speech? -- Regulating racist speech on campus / Charles R Lawrence III -- Free speech on campus / Nat Hentoff -- 7: Language, Gender, And Sexism -- How does English prejudice us against women and men? -- Sexism in English: a 1990s update / Alleen Pace Nilsen -- English anyone? / Spiro T Agnew -- Gender benders / Jack Rosenthal -- Life as a female gentleman / Lani Guinier -- Real men don't: anti-male bias in English / Eugene R August -- How do women and men talk? -- Sex differences / Ronald Macaulay -- I'll explain it to you: lecturing and listening / Deborah Tannen -- Gender wars in cyberspace / Nathan Cobb -- Hills like white elephants / Earnest Hemingway -- Case study: sexism and the bible -- Is God purple? / Mary Jo Meadow -- Creation of man and woman, from genesis / Revised standard version of the Bible -- God creates humankind, from genesis / Inclusive language lectionary -- Don't rewrite the Bible / Michael Golden -- 8: Double Talk, Euphemisms, And Professional Jargon -- Bureaucratic double talk -- Doubts about doublespeak / William Lutz -- Euphemisms: sugarcoating reality -- Euphemisms / Hugh Rawson -- Talking down / Nathan Cobb -- Professional jargon: language of the trades -- Doctor talk / Diane Johnson -- It may not be English, but it's strictly legal / George Gordon Coughlin -- Case study -- Little Red Riding Hood revisited / Russell Baker -- 9: Standard And Nonstandard English -- What's good English? -- Good English and bad / Bill Bryson -- Why good English is good for you / John Simon -- Simonspeak / Jim Quinn -- What's not good English? Slang and dialects -- It ain't no big thing / Paul Dickson -- Are accents out? He dude like NEH-oh way! / Patrick Cooke -- Like, uptalk? / James Gorman -- Credits -- Index of authors and titles.