"Lively, provocative and highly literate."
-Newsweek
On Literacy
T
he Politics
oftheWord
fromHomer
to theAge of
Rock~
ROBERT PATTISON
Do young people write less literately
than earlier generations? Are their
mechanical errors symptomatic of
cuIrural decline? Has television warped
their capacity for literate behavior? In a
radical new book that challenges
modern orthodoxies in education,
economics, and social planning, Robert
Pattison answers these questions with a
resounding
no!
Approaching the
problem of literacy from the standpoint
of a book lover rather than a
sociologist, Pattison sets the subject in
historical perspective, using examples
that range from Homer ( who could not
read or write) to Bruce Springsteen
( who, according to Pattison, is a poet
worth consideration). Writing with wit
and style, Pattison sweeps aside the
pious sentiment and runnel vision
which have obscured the problem of
literacy and arrives at a fresh vision of
the furure of the word.
$17.95
"An important book, beautifully writ–
ten." -
LibraryJournal
"Provocative ... Pattison doesn't care
for people like John Simon, William
Safire and Edwin Newman, who have
set themselves up to guard the citadel
of English against barbaric usages ..
He takes us on a tour of ancient
Greece, Alexandria and Rome and
England of the Industrial Revolution,
pointing out how class differences
were sustained by rules of language
that served the elites."
-The New
York Times Book Review
Pattison on ._.
HopefuUy
"Only someone blind to the realities of
life in our cenrury could agree that the
preservation of,hopefully' in its eight–
eenth-cenrury meaning is connected in
a positive way with people's wel-
fare....like thousands of other words,
'hopefuUy' has come to have new
senses beyond its traditional usages.
Why resist the evolution of the
language?"
Today's Students
"The same srudents who resolutely
remain in darkness about the niceties of
correct English grammar are as capable
of inteUigence as any previous genera–
tion. They are only selective about
what niceties they choose to observe.
Months of exercises
will
not shake their
nonchalance about commas, but few
are likely to misspeU the name Led
Zeppelin."
At your bookstore or orderfrom:
Department HS
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
L--__
200 MADISON AVE., NEW YORK, NY 10016__
--1
PARTISAN REVIEW
Published at Boston University
