A collection of essays on linguistic variation in English that distinguishes communities and social groups from one another includes: "Standard English: Biography of a Symbol" (Shirley Brice Heath); "The Rise of Standard English" (Margaret Shaklee); "English Orthography" (Wayne O'Neil); "How Pablo Says 'Love' and 'Stove'" and "An Afterword: How English Speakers Say 'Finger' and 'Sing'" (Timothy Shopen); "Creative Spelling by Young Children" (Charles Read); "Selections from Bengt Loman's 'Conversations in a Negro American Dialect'" (Timothy Shopen); "The Speech of the New York City Upper Class" (Geoffrey Nunberg); and "On the Application of Sociolinguistic Information: Test Evaluation and Dialect Differences in Appalachia" (Walt Wolfram, Donna Christian) and "An Afterword: The Accidents of History" (Joseph M. Williams). (MSE)