William Labov (1927–2024)

He was a giant of linguistics. The New York Times has an obituary.

I had the chance to hear William Labov give a talk in 2007, “The Growing Divergence of English Dialects in North America.” I took that chance, and wrote something about the talk.

A Labov comment about communication and truthfulness that has stuck with me: “A parrot can say ‘I will meet you downtown at 8:00’ — but he won’t be there.”

Two related posts
The long e : A vowel shift in the wild