Pei; was Re: "Turn on"

[Barbara Need]

>Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> writes (responding to Jonathan Lightner's
>post):
>>>>>>
>>    Pei's comments on American slang are often unreliable.
>
>Alas! Poor Mario! He just don't get no respect. Everybody puts him
>down. (Long story not worth the telling.)
>  <<<<<
>
>I remember his _The Story of Language_ as part of what turned me on to
>linguistics.

Me too! there was stuff that did not make sense until graduate school
(the difference between phonetics and phonology, for instance), but I
found the whole thing fascinating. Also his history of English book,
and one on the development of the Romance languages, with a language
river rather than a tree.

Barbara Need
UChicago--Linguistics