Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times
- Book Review,
by Geoffrey Nunberg
Amazon.com
Geoffrey Nunberg can make one quite self conscious to write even a simple sentence. And yes, that is a compliment. A regular language commentator on NPR's Fresh Air, Nunberg examines the curious ways in which the modern language expresses far more about history, politics, and culture than most casual English users would ever realize. Going Nucular, besides having one of the more whimsical titles to come along in a while, offers up scores of chapters, each examining specific words, phrases, or verbal tendencies. And while words like "terrorism", "fascism", "appeasement", and "Caucasian" (and even the hapless "like" and "ain't") are tossed about regularly in contemporary usage, achieving an understanding of their origin and evolution can serve to better explain not just the word but the issue to which it is attached. Other language books have become popular among the "grammarati" for their hard line approach but Nunberg seeks to explore and understand rather than to enforce and punish. To that end, he defends "blog" as being a verb and noun that has earned its place in the language; it's very phonetic clunkiness being part of the appeal. And though he can diagram a sentence with the best of them, Nunberg is at his most delightful when shining a harsh lingual light on the ways in which the average person encounters words every day. A stinging and hilarious indictment of TV news' weird obsession with the present tense ("In North Dakota, high winds making life difficult") makes the reader hear the evening news in an entirely new way. Going Nucular is much more than a nudge and a wisecrack to self-appointed word cops, it's an insider's tour of the vernacular by the English teacher you only wish you had. --John Moe
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.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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 Moores
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
San Jose Mercury News
Smart, funny and informed-- an unbeatable combination."
Harvard Courant
"a collection of sharp essays ... Nunberg shows how the smallest linguistic coffee bean flavors the political and cultural brew."
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch June 30, 2004
Clearly, Nunberg knows about etymology and usage and a good deal more witty, entertaining, informative and unfailingly fascinating.
Creative Loafing, June 19, 2004
"engaging style and acuity ... His insights into language are remarkably astute, enlightening, and - here's a new one - unpretentious."
San Francisco Chronicle, July 8, 2004
"[Nunberg] hopes to remind us is that in language lies clues to understanding the most divisive issues of the day."
SF Weekly Magazine, June 23, 2004
"What separates ... Going Nucular ... from a pack ... is the playful curiosity with which the author regards the English language."
Philadelphia City Paper, June 24, 2004
"Nunberg is the best kind of word nerd: He cares what words mean"
The Washington Post Book World, July 18, 2004
"His observations on political speech are especially valuable in revealing how words inform our understanding of issues."
San Francisco Chronicle, June 6, 2004
"Nunberg ... ferret[s] out those ... guys skulking ... in our language ... and ... what they ... tell us about out political and social skills."
Boston Globe, May 23, 2004
"[Nunberg is] a master at showing why certain ways of speaking flourish and in suggesting what ends they serve."
Book Description
The "Fresh Air" commentator and New York Times contributor artfully shows how our use of language reveals the true mindset of contemporary America. The words that echo through Geoffrey Nunberg's brilliant new journey across the landscape of American language evoke exactly the tenor of our times. Nunberg has a wonderful ear for the new, the comic and the absurd. He pronounces that: "'Blog' is a syllable whose time has come," and that "You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right," with which he launches into the effect of Google on our collective consciousness. Nunberg hears the shifting use of "Gallic" as we suddenly find ourselves in bitter opposition to the French; perhaps only Nunberg could compare America the Beautiful with a Syrian national anthem that contains the line "A land resplendent with brilliant suns...almost like a sky centipede." At the heart of the entertainment and linguistic slapstick that Nunberg delights in are the core concerns that have occupied American minds. "Going Nucular," the title piece, is more than a bit of fun at the President's expense. Nunberg's analysis is as succinct a summary of the questions that hover over the administration's strategy as any political insider's. It exemplifies the message of the book: that in the smallest ticks and cues of language the most important issue and thoughts of our times can be heard and understood. If you know how to listen for them. Nunberg has dazzling receptors, perfect acoustics and a deftly elegant style to relay his wit and wisdom.
About the Author
Geoffrey Nunberg is a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University and a Consulting Full Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University. He is chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. Since 1989, he has done a regular language feature on NPR's "Fresh Air," and more recently he has been doing regular features about language and topical issues for the Sunday New York Times "Week in Review."
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