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Indeed, while the analysis confirms that caregiver speech is a key input into children's acquisition of community variants-as it with standard forms-the authors go further in their careful consideration of the influence of age, gender, context-dependent style-shifting, and linguistic and social constraints. Caregivers use more standard variants with their younger children, gradually increasing the frequency of local variants as the children age. Caregivers' relative consciousness of social stigma attached to a given variable factored heavily in their use and their child's subsequent acquisition. Furthermore, the awareness itself is transmitted early on in the process of language acquisition. The authors also uncover a deletion phenomenon in the morphosyntactic variable of do, which they maintain 'has important implications for other linguistic variables which may exhibit "linguistic zeroes"' (159). In the grand tradition of social science, the authors conclude by intoning that it's complicated. Smith & Durham deftly fill a gap in language acquisition research, simultaneously blazing trails for further study. The formerly hidden patterns of variant use 'can inform more broadly on theories of language structure and how the language faculty is configured in variation' (148). One particularly interesting thread involves the interplay between language ideology and (local) identity-formation 'inherent in CDS [child-directed speech] and caregivers' social evaluation of their role in these crucial years of development' (195). Ethnographic methods could help clarify why certain lexical-phonological variants are deployed with greater frequency than others in particular CDS contexts. For scholars interested in language acquisition, local linguistic variation, style shifting, or the idiosyncratic charms of tiny children, Smith & Durham offer an intriguing text for intellectual consumption. But don't eat it.

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