Like many black people who came of age in the 60's, I've always delighted in the mind-bending playfulness of the black vernacular.

Writing in The Times 25 years ago, James Baldwin ventured that the black vernacular was one of self-defense.

"It becomes part of the mainstream in a minute," the poet Amiri Baraka told me, referring to the black vernacular.

But the black vernacular of Oscar Hammerstein, Jr. was too self-conscious, and it didn't always suit the music.

That is precisely what blacks have been doing for years, say linguists who study black vernacular.

"What they're really responding to is not me; they are seeing themselves in us," she insists, her speech a unique mixture of Oxford English and black vernacular.

Louis, in the black American vernacular, 'tommed out'.

During this time, linguists say, the black vernacular has steadily diverged from standard English and become more widespread in poor, urban neighborhoods.

Some teachers applaud that approach, especially those who feel that the black vernacular is just bad grammar.

Individual school districts in cities with large black populations, like Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia, are using programs to teach students who use black vernacular.