Martin Kich, “Speaking American as Americans Speak It and Speaking English as Jesus and St. Paul Spoke It” (The Academe Blog, AAUP, Sept. 13, 2015)
Recently, I posted an item on Sarah Palin’s abuse of the English language, which included her observation that if immigrants don’t want to be stigmatized, they should start “speaking American.” Very coincidentally, later on that same day, I came across an item in the discussion list for the American Dialect Society that included a link to a much lengthier item posted previously to Language Log. The two items are re-posted here with the permission of the author, Ben Zimmer. They demonstrate concretely that Palin’s nativist sensibility has deep historical roots in American life.
Read the rest here.