When a slangster cocks an eyebrow and rasps "Oh, yeah?" some people feel faintly bilious. But when a pundit uttered the phrase last week at the Milwaukee meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, he stirred his hearers to academic enthusiasm. The "yea" in the Bible, said Supervisor of English Max John Herzberg of Newark's public schools, is the "yeah" of today. Beowulf or any other early Briton would have pronounced it in the same manner if not with the same irritating inflection. Also, said Supervisor Herzberg, the use of "them" for "those" is no modern practice. "Them"...
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