Quite a great discussion of African American (Vernacular) English (and yes, I do think I'll be dropping that V now), with its many tense and case innovations and its substrate (not creole, which was one of the interesting and convincing arguments here) Africanisms. Of utility! (And it interests me that the scholarship says that Southern whites do a lot of the same copula drops and stuff as blacks. How come I never meet these whites?) ( )