John McWhorter on being "strange," Fats Waller's lost Broadway musical

New York Times columnist, best-selling author, linguist and Columbia University professor John McWhorter doesn't shy away from controversy and isn't afraid to offend people. Take, for instance, "The Golden Girls." In his New York Times opinion article on the TV series, McWhorter writes, "This show was a paragon of the genre and starred three spectacular performers." There were four stars on the 1980s sitcom. "Honestly, I was never crazy about the Sophia character. I wouldn't have wanted to hang out with Sophia. Whereas with Rue McClanahan and Betty White, and Bea Arthur, those three to me were amazing," McWhorter said. "I'm gonna go there. That's right," he added with a laugh. John Hamilton McWhorter was raised in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. His parents worked at Temple University. His mother taught social work while his father worked as a student administrator. "I grew up in a rarely, truly integrated middle-class neighborhood in Philadelphia called Mount Airy. It was Black and White people living practically alternating in very nice middle-class houses," McWhorter said. He recalled being a "nerdy little kid" who "loved lists" and "loved the printed page." "I read strangely early. I was the little professor. Not to the point that I couldn't go outside and play, but I now know that it's peculiar that when I was 8, I could recite all of the presidents' wives," he said. …