The Way We Talk Now: Commentaries on Language and Culture from Npr's Fresh Air

This engaging collection of National Public Radio broadcasts and magazine pieces by one of America's best-known linguists covers the waterfront of contemporary culture by taking stock of its words and phrases. From our metaphors for the Internet ("Virtual Rialto") to the perils of electronic grammar checkers ("The Software We Deserve"), from traditional grammatical bugaboos ("Sex and the Singular Verb") to the ways we talk about illicit love ("Affairs of State"), Geoffrey Nunberg shows just how much the language we use from day to day reveals about who we are and who we want to be.

Author: Geoffrey Nunberg
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Published: 10/15/2001
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.64d
ISBN: 9780618116034

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2001 pg. 1099
Library Journal 10/01/2001 pg. 98

About the Author
Nunberg, Geoffrey: - Geoffrey Nunberg is a principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and a consulting professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University. He is also chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He has published many articles in the scholarly and popular press and made numerous radio broadcasts on language and linguistics, the cultural implications of digital technologies, and language policy issues. For this work, he was given the 2001 Language, Linguistics, and the Public Interest Award by the Linguistic Society of America.