On screen, White is perhaps best known for his role in hit comedy Airplane! as the jive-talking man whose words have to be translated (he reprised the jive-talking for a courtroom scene in the sequel).
African American Vernacular English, a distinctive lect, or variety, of English spoken by many African Americans, sometimes called "Ebonics"
In this period, he also published his first poetry collection Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), which showed his increasing political stance and adoption of the black vernacular influences that characterize his later work.
His Our Marvelous Native Tongue (also called The Life and Times of the English Language) is a well-known book about the origins and evolution of English, spanning subjects as diverse as the Indo-Europeans, the Saxons, the King James Bible, Pidgin English, and African American Vernacular English (also called 'Ebonics').
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The move created national news with the perception Oakland schools were teaching students "Ebonics" because there was discussion about Ebonics being used as a teaching tool.
His specialty is African American Vernacular English, which garnered national attention in the U.S. when the Oakland, California school board recognized the variety as an official dialect of English and educated teachers in its use.
Oakland Ebonics controversy, generated by the recognition in December 1996 by the Oakland, California school board of "Ebonics" (i.e. African-American Vernacular English) as a distinct language