Why do people speak the way they do? And why does the way they speak make so much difference? This collection of essays on language variation offers fascinating answers to these intriguing questions and explores key issues in the field. Designed to help teachers and students in high school and college investigate the scope and implications of language variation in North American English, thirty-nine essays, all original, offer a wealth of practical advice and provide exercises and assignments as well as suggestions for classroom projects and fieldwork. The authors approach their subjects from a variety of fields, including dialectology, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and lexicography. Teachers, students, and language buffs alike will find an engrossing array of insights and ideas in this up-to-date study of a topic that has never been more pertinent than it is today.