It brings together many of the English language’s finest writers – most of them young

It brings together many of the English language’s finest writers – most of them young. His examples reflect a wide-ranging knowledge of popular culture, and he is full of odd, illuminating facts – not least that human beings were speaking to each other in 150,000 BC, but began to write less than 6,000 years ago.Quite unintentionally, The Future Dictionary of America is a hopeful riposte to this critique of current written English. The flavour emerges from the initial model entry: “Libcon: a leftist who seeks to conserve what ‘conservatives’ desire to destroy, to wit social security, funded public education, the environment, scientific objectivity, social welfare, equal rights for women, the Constitution of the United States, strategic alliances, the minimum wage, gun control, and child labor laws…”Contributors include Simon Schama, Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Chabon and editor Dave Eggers, whose McSweeney’s magazine is where the book originated. It’s an often pointed read, though enough of a dictionary to be more fun to browse in than read straight through. Part spoof, part satire, it purports to be a dictionary of English words in the year 2016, and is propelled throughout by the contributors’ collective detestation of the Bush administration.

But though his own prose affects a chatty jauntiness, McWhorter’s sympathies are clearly with the ornate and complex compositions of the past. For over 25 years both Carlines worked for several months a year as examiners for the Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, assessing work in various media from Britain, Africa, India and South East Asia and helping establish more liberal criteria But the heart of her work was her own painting. Savio’s informal rhetoric is seen as typical of a growing dissident reaction against “authority”, and thus against traditionally written forms of argument.This is an arresting thesis, but it seems no more plausible than the impact of television, advertising, and “modern” education, with its unwillingness to teach writing skills. There has also been the growing influence of an African-American culture that is decidedly oral rather than written (especially in its effect on popular music), though to his credit McWhorter explores this influence at length.Not all of this change strikes McWhorter as bad, though his two examples of its positive effect seem pretty thin – he suggests that the arbiters of language correctness now play less of a role in our lives (how does this explain the success of Lynne Truss?) and that newcomers to English no longer find a baffling divide between its oral use and the formality of its written incarnation. According to McWhorter, traditional practitioners are now confined to a hermeticist ghetto, in which a poetry industry exists to serve the interests of poetry producers rather than consumers. But there are effectively no consumers left, unless for the kind of plain-speech work of poets such as the American laureate Billy Collins, or spoken-word performers who are arguably more rapsters than poets.McWhorter’s detailed account of the “oralisation” of English is generally persuasive and always entertainingly argued, but he is less convincing in his efforts to explain why this has happened.

He accepts only a minimal role for cinema, television and pop lyrics in the seepage of oral elements into the written language, but oddly sees the counter-culture of the 1960s as the key catalyst instead.This is symbolised for McWhorter by the speeches given by one of the early protest leaders, Mario Savio, who led the Free Speech movement at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964-65. And the few “orators” we have are inevitably preachers, whose expositions are spontaneous spoken outbursts. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, even Bill Clinton, speak from the heart, but very rarely from the page.The removal of formality shows its influence in literary genres, including poetry. You can only be stupid once in your life and get away with it.After his release from the Army, Norton ran a large tobacco plantation in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Although uninterested in politics, he became chairman of the local defence committee when terrorists began attacking the farms. In 1985 he sold the property and moved onto his daughter’s farm in Trelawney; however in 2002 the family was obliged to move to a flat in Harare after theirs was among the many white-owned farms seized in Zimbabwe.

After 38 days, an extremely weary but delighted Norton and his men reached El Alamein. He was awarded a Military Medal for his leadership and endurance.Norton was commissioned in 1943 and later attached to the Hampshire Regiment and served with them throughout the Italian campaign. Later, asked about the actions at Monte Gridolfo that led to the award of his VC, he said, Like any young stupid fellow I felt I would not be hit It was pure luck that I didn’t get shot. Their feet were torn to shreds and they were fortunate to discover a serviceable truck left on a battlefield.Discarding their helmets and unshaven, they drove through the enemy lines, giving the odd nod to the un- enquiring German or Italian troops. In his log he recorded, “The whole operation was a very spectacular affair.”The fortress fell on 5 January and with it 36,000 Italian prisoners. Norton’s regiment, then with 4th Brigade, took over the none-too-easy task of defending Tobruk.

By 20 June 1942 Tobruk was encircled by Rommel and by the following morning 30,000 Allied troops surrendered. But, just before dawn that day, Norton escaped and broke out of Tobruk with an officer and four men. They were to endure an appalling journey across nearly 600 miles of desert, walking at night and resting by day. The attack on 1 January 1941 was assisted by a considerable naval bombardment. Among the bombarding ships was the Valiant on board which was a 19-year-old Prince Philip. By now a sergeant, he had turned down two offers of a commission.