From Publishers Weekly
Stanford linguistics professor Nunberg suggests using language as a "jumping-off point" to learn more about Americans’ evolving values and attitudes in this feisty, humorous collection of essays gleaned from his NPR and newspaper commentaries. Nunberg cracks the codes embedded in many familiar terms used in media, business, technology and politics to reveal unexpected insights about our fractious society. Marching straight into the culture wars, he observes that the "old-fashioned" racial term "Caucasian" remains an acceptable euphemism for white, unlike the similarly dated racial categories, "Negroid" and "Mongoloid." "Caucasian," he concludes, "is a cultural category in racial drag." He deconstructs the notion of "class warfare" and explores how Americans’ comfort in using the prefix "middle" with "class"—but not "upper" or "working"—speaks volumes about contemporary ideas on wealth, privilege and social mobility. The wordsmith also blows the whistle on the rhetorical gymnastics surrounding the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the war on terror. American foreign policy should not hinge on stamping unfriendly governments with absolute yet conveniently vague epithets like "evil" when a tag like "rogue states" works with fewer indignant howls, he says. As Nunberg’s title suggests, pronunciation can also be political: President Bush’s much-lampooned utterance "nucular" could be either a nod to "Pentagon wise guys" or a sly "faux-bubba" gimmick to curry favor with some voters. While liberals don’t escape criticism, Nunberg unleashes his well-chosen barbs from a left-of-center perch. Conservatives, especially pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Peggy Noonan, receive special scrutiny for what Nunberg says are the simplistic linguistic devices they use to appeal to their audiences. Nunberg avoids hasty conjectures, and the provocative clues scattered across these pages should alert readers to the "linguistic deceptions" in their midst.
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From Booklist
"The worst offense you can commit against language," writes linguist Nunberg, "is to fail to listen to it closely." A peculiar notion: in the midst of what passes for our national conversation, someone suggests that we listen to what's being said. Nunberg is as good as his word. This collection of 66 essays, gathered from his appearances on NPR's
Fresh Air and his columns for the
New York Times "Week in Review," offers new takes gleaned from the language of politics, business, warfare, symbols, technology, the media, culture, even language itself. Many insights come from pure legwork, like counting appearances of a word or expression in the press. For his essay on modern romance, Nunberg found that of 50 Nexus hits for the word
suitor, 48 referred to business deals. Other insights are less binary, such as Nunberg's prophetic observation, made in September 2001, that the administration's choice of "Operation Enduring Freedom" as the name of its war on terrorism could rebound: "[Winston Churchill] knew as well as anyone how history delights in throwing unforeseen ironies our way."
Alan MooresCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
