Geoff nunberg biography books list

This is my new website; my old Berkeley home page is here. My linguistics research includes work in semantics and pragmatics, text classification, normative grammar, and written-language structure—and recently, on the use of taboo language like vulgarities and slurs. I also work and write on the social and cultural implications of new technologies.

For more on my academic activities, visit my home page at the iSchool. I sometimes blog at LanguageLog.

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A slide show at Huffington Post —excuse the witless headings. We are taught that there is no such thing as a Theory of Everything, and that we should beware of anyone nutty enough to claim that you can reduce reality to its gist with one handy explanation-philosophy-catchphrase. A delightfully and devilishly trenchant and provocative book… Nunberg dissects his subject with style and surgical precision.

Altschuler , San Francisco Chronicle. The nearly universally understood qualities of an asshole—self-delusion, arrogance, thoughtlessness, pretentiousness, egotism and an exaggerated sense of entitlement—become a kind of catalyst for the author to enact a broad critique of contemporary public discourse and behavior. A witty and politically charged analysis of a potent obscenity in its modern and contemporary context.

The author … undertakes a serious examination of not just the word, but also the concept surrounding it known as assholism, a type of behavior with, it seems, pretty clear markers …. An intelligent and wide-ranging study of linguistics, ideas, and social trends. The book is a satisfying blend of great scholarship, wit, and splendid logic.

It is a joy from start to finish, and the reviewers agree….