Rotten English is full of, well . . . rotten English. But then Robert Burns's dialect has come to be studied in English lit classes and Rudyard Kipling is admired even if he does say "cheaper than them uniforms" in his poem, "Tommy." Rotten English also includes deadly English in a short story by Thomas Wolfe, and we all know what Mark Twain could do with dialogue and narrative voice (Ahmad includes his "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" in her book). She also includes short stories, excerpts from novels, poems, and pieces that use slang, Creole, patois, pidgin and just about any other variation of our language you can think of.

Rotten English is a book to savor one entry at a time. That might be something to keep in mind if you are a teacher using it as a text for a class. You might want to plan your reading time in little spurts even if you tend to enjoy a challenge. The language is not always easy, not always pretty (though sometimes it is pretty!). I found each piece worthwhile, even entertaining. The ones in which I had to struggle to adapt my reading ear to the phonetically spelled words on the page may have been the most rewarding of all.