The Years of Talking Dangerously

There has never been, Nunberg writes, "an age as wary as ours of the tricks words can play, obscuring distinctions and smoothing over the corrugations of the actual world.... Yet as advertisers and marketers know, our mistrust of words doesnt inoculate us against them."

These are the years of talking dangerously, and Nunberg is a sure guide to the pitfalls. With illuminating intelligence and devastating humor, Nunberg decodes the changing syntax of Time Magazine, explains why grammar buffs are drawn to sarcasm, and deftly unpacks the telling phrases of our national conversation, from progressive to elite to changenot to mention national conversation itself.

About the Author

Geoffrey Nunberg is a linguist who teaches at the University of California at Berkeleys School of Information and is the former chair of the American Heritage Dictionarys Usage Panel. His commentaries on language and politics have appeared regularly in the Sunday New York Times and on NPRs "Fresh Air." The author of Going Nucular, Talking Right, and The Way We Talk Now, Nunberg lives in San Francisco, California.