GEOFFREY NUNBERG

Credit: Nicole Katano     

 

 

Geoffrey Nunberg

Wednesday, September 12, 7:00 p.m.

Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism in Modern Life-The First Sixty Years

 

It went from the mouths of WWII servicemen to the typewriter of a young Norman Mailer. By the 1970s it had become a staple of Neil Simon plays and Woody Allen movies. In 2000, George W. Bush accidentally uttered it on a live mic and sparked a debate as to whether that made him a man of the people, or just an asshole. Ours is the age of assholism.

Over time, the word has acquired a unique definition -- an asshole is not a cad or a rogue or phony, though assholes may be all of these. And because it is a dirty word, a vulgarism that we pretend does not belong to us, it passes by without self-conscious explanation or affect. It's a very pure reflection of our times and collapsing culture precisely because we pay so little attention to it. Until now.

Geoffrey Nunberg is an adjunct full professor at UC Berkeley's School of Information, a linguist and former chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. Since 1989, he has done a language feature on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” and his commentaries have appeared in the New York Times and other publications. A winner of the Linguistic Society of America’s Language and the Public Interest Award, he is also the author of Talking Right and Going Nucular.

 

Event date: 
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 - 7:00pm
Event address: 
1010 El Camino Real
94025-4349 Menlo Park
us
The Way We Talk Now: Commentaries on Language and Culture from NPR's Fresh Air By Geoffrey Nunberg Cover Image
$15.55
ISBN: 9780618116034
Availability: Usually Arrives at Kepler's in 3-14 Days
Published: Harper Paperbacks - October 15th, 2001

Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times By Geoffrey Nunberg Cover Image
$22.87
ISBN: 9781586483456
Availability: Usually Arrives at Kepler's in 3-14 Days
Published: PublicAffairs - June 15th, 2005