Going Nucular Read online

  Krebs, Maynard G.

  Kristof, Nicholas

  LaFollette, Robert

  LaGuardia, Fiorello

  Landau, Sidney

  Larousee, Pierre

  Lawrence of Arabia (motion picture)

  Lawrence, T. E.

  Lay, Kenneth

  Leary, Timothy

  Lebanon

  Lehi (Lohamei Herut Israel)

  Lemann, Nicholas

  Leo, John

  Levin, Carl

  Lévi-Strauss, Claude

  Lewis, C. S.

  Lewis, Sinclair

  Lexicographers

  Liberals

  Liddy, G. Gordon

  Lighter, Jonathan

  Limbaugh, Rush

  Lindsey, Larry

  Lindsey, Vachel

  Linguistic corruption

  Linguists

  Lippmann, Walter

  Lit, Hy

  Locke, John

  Lombardi, Vince

  London, Jack

  Long, Huey P.

  Lott, Trent

  Love, Courtney

  Lowry, Richard

  Lucas, George

  Luntz, Frank

  Lynch, Jessica

  Lynes, Russell

  Macartney, George

  Macdonald, Dwight

  MacLeish, Archibald

  Mad Max movies

  Magee, Mark

  Maher, Bill

  Mailer, Norman

  Malkin, Michelle

  Mankiewicz, Joseph

  Manufacturing sector of economy

  Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The (television show)

  Marketers

  Marriage

  broadening definition of

  same-sex

  Martin Chuzzlewit (Dickens)

  Massachusetts

  “Masscult and Midcult” (Macdonald)

  McCarthy, Joseph R. and McCarthyism

  McGuire, Barry

  McKinley, William

  McNabb, Donovan

  McTaggart, Lynn

  Media. See also News; Radio; Television

  Meillet, Antoine

  Mencken, H. L.

  Mergers

  Mideast peace talks

  Military operations. See also Operations

  Miller, Mark Crispin

  Modern American Usage (Follett)

  Modern English Usage (Fowler)

  Monroe, Elizabeth

  Montaigne

  Moore, James F.

  Moore, Michael

  Morissette, Alanis

  Morrison, Toni

  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Sandler)

  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (motion picture)

  Murdoch, Rupert

  Muslim world, and language and cultural divide with West

  Mussolini, Benito

  Naming

  of automobiles

  and dates as names

  and military operations

  and notarikon

  online phenomena

  Napoleon

  National anthems

  Nature of Prejudice, The (Allport)

  Nelson, Willie

  Network (motion picture)

  Neustadt, Richard E.

  New Deal

  New Left

  News networks

  The New Yorker (magazine)

  New York Times (newspaper)

  NFL Today (television show)

  Nightingale, Florence

  1984 (Orwell)

  92nd Street Y

  Nixon, Richard

  Noah, Timothy

  Noonan, Peggy

  Nordlinger, Jay

  Norris, Chuck

  Norris, Frank

  North Korea

  Notarikon

  Novack, Robert

  No Way Out (Mankiewicz)

  Nunberg, Sophie

  Obscenity

  taboo of, within

  Oldsmobiles

  O’Neill, Paul

  “On Vanity” (Montaigne)

  OpenPages

  Operation Desert Shield

  Operation Desert Storm

  Operation Enduring Freedom

  Operation Infinite Justice

  Operation Iraqi Freedom

  Operation Liberation Shield

  Operation Liberty Shield

  Operation Overlord

  Operation Sealion

  Operation Urgent Fury

  Oprah (television show)

  O’Reilly, Bill

  Orwell, George

  Parris, Matthew

  Pastiche

  Patriotic symbols

  Patriotism

  Peace flags

  Pegler, Westbrook

  Penal code

  Penitence

  Performance

  Performative notion

  Perls, Fritz

  Peter Pan

  Peterson, Ray

  Peter the Hermit

  Photography

  Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel

  Plagiarism

  Plastic (song)

  Plastic Fantastic Lover (song)

  Plastic People (song)

  Plastics

  Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century (Fenichell)

  Pledge of Allegiance

  Plurals

  Podhoretz, John

  Podhoretz, Norman

  Poitier, Sidney

  Political language

  “Politics and the English Language” (Orwell)

  Polysyndeton

  Popularism

  class value of

  decline of

  ”speaking like them” as

  speaking without condescending in

  values, not class, for

  Porter, Cole

  Possessives

  Postmodernism

  Powell, Colin

  Power to the people

  Prefixes

  Profanity

  commonplace of

  denaturized

  taboos against

  Progressive era

  Progressive Policy Institute (PPI)

  Pronouns

  Propaganda

  Cold War

  infomercial

  World War I

  World War II

  Protest movement of 1960s

  Proust, Marcel

  PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Acheivement Test)

  Pulitzer, Joseph

  Pullum, Geoff

  Quayle, Dan

  Quotative marker

  Rabanne, Paco

  Race and language

  “Racial privacy initiative,”

  Radiohead

  Radio talk shows

  Rambo

  Rand, Ayn

  Rangel, Charles

  Rave Act

  Reagan, Ronald

  Recall process

  Red Army Chorus

  Reeves, Richard

  Reign of Terror

  Rejlander, Oscar

  Republican Convention

  Republican party

  Reuters

  Reynolds, Glenn

  Rice, Condoleezza

  Rice, Grantland

  Rich, Adrienne

  Richardson, Samuel

  Rich, Frank

  Ridge, Tom

  Ridgeway, General

  Right. See Conservatives

  the Right

  Robbins, Tim

  Robertson, Pat

  Robespierre, Maximilien F.M.I. de

  Robinson, Henry Peach

  Rockefeller, John D.

  Roosevelt, Franklin D.

  Roosevelt, Theodore

  Roots (Haley)

  Rosenthal, A. M.

  Rothstein, Edward

  Rubin, Jerry

  Rumsfeld, Donald

  Rushdie, Salmon

  Ruth, Babe

  Saddam Hussein

  al-Sadr, Muktada

  Safety and liberty

  Safire, William

  Sandler, Adam

  Santorum, Rick

  Sartre, Jean-Paul<
br />
  Savage, Michael

  Sayers, Dorothy

  Scalia, Antonin

  Scapulars

  Schiaparelli, Elsa

  Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.

  Schorr, Daniel

  Schumpeter, Joseph

  Schwarzengger, Arnold

  Scrutton, Roger

  Seabrook, John

  Semites

  Senior moment

  September 11

  Sexual abstinence

  Shakespeare

  Sharon, Ariel

  Sherman, Cindy

  Showtime

  Sieminsky, Gregory

  Sigourney, Lydia Howard

  Simmons, Laurie

  Simon, John

  Simpson, Homer

  Simpson, O. J.

  Singular tense

  Skinner, David

  Skoglund, Sandy

  Skutnik, Lenny

  Skywalker, Luke

  Sloan, Alfred

  Smith, Shepard

  Smith, Winston

  Snow, Tony

  Sondheim, Steven

  Sorites Fallacy

  Southern Pacific railroad

  Spartacist League

  Spears, Britney

  Specter, Arlen

  Spellbound (motion picture)

  Spelling

  Spielberg, Steven

  Spiritual purity

  Springer, Jerry

  Standards, traditional

  Star-Spangled Banner, The (song)

  Star Trek movies

  Star Wars movies

  State of Union speech

  Steiner, Peter

  Stevenson, Adlai

  Stewart, Jon

  Stewart, Potter

  Stills, Stephen

  Stock market

  Story of American Freedom (Foner)

  Strachey, Lytton

  Strand, Paul

  Suddenly (song)

  Summers, Lawrence

  Supreme Court

  Surrealists

  Sweeney Todd

  Swift, Jane

  Swift, Jonathan

  Synder, Gary

  Taft, Robert A.

  Taliban

  Television

  Teresa of Avila

  Thomas, Cal

  Thoreau, Henry

  Thurmond, Strom

  TIPS, operation

  Tocqueville, Alexis de

  Total Information Awareness project

  Trollope, Anthony

  Truman, Harry S.

  Trump, Donald

  Tunik, Spencer

  Twain, Mark

  2 Live Crew

  “Two Concepts of Liberty” (Berlin)

  Tyler, Patrick E.

  Typos

  United Nations

  U.S.A. Patriot Act

  USS Abraham Lincoln

  Valley Girl (song)

  Vermont

  Victorians

  Vienna, siege of

  Vietnam

  Viva l’Italia (song)

  Volokh, Eugene

  Volvo

  Wall Street (motion picture)

  War and language

  Washington, George

  Watergate

  Watson, Thomas

  WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)

  Weblogs

  Web sites and Internet

  Webster, Daniel

  Webster, Noah

  Webster’s Third International Dictionary

  Weill, Sanford

  Welch, Jack

  Westmorland, General

  What’s the Matter With Kansas? (Frank)

  Whitman, Walt

  Wild Blue, The (Ambrose)

  Will, George

  Williams, Glanville

  Williams, John Sharp

  Williams, Raymond

  Williams, Ted

  Willkie, Wendell

  Wilson, Woodrow

  Wings of Desire (motion picture)

  Witkin, Peter

  Wolfe, Tom

  Wolfowitz, Paul

  Woodward. Vann

  Word-buffs

  Working class, liberals and conservatives

  World Economic Forum

  World Trade Center. See also September 11

  World War I

  World War II

  language regarding

  propaganda

  Young Americans for Freedom

  You’re the Top (song)

  Youth

  Zappa, Frank

  Zappa, Moon Unit

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  GEOFFREY NUNBERG is a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University and Consulting Full Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University. He is a chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. He does a regular language feature on NPR’s Fresh Air and writes regular features about language and topical issues for the Sunday New York Times “Week in Review.”

  PublicAffairs is a publishing house founded in 1997. It is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.

  I.F. STONE, proprietor of I. F. Stone’s Weekly, combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published The Trial of Socrates, which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.

  BENJAMIN C. BRADLEE was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of The Washington Post. It was Ben who gave the Post the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, best-selling books.

  ROBERT L. BERNSTEIN, the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation’s premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and longtime chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organizations in the world.

  For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983, Schnapper was described by The Washington Post as “a redoubtable gadfly.” His legacy will endure in the books to come.

  Peter Osnos, Publisher

  Copyright © 2004 by Geoffrey Nunberg.

  Published in the United States by PublicAffairs™,

  a member of the Perseus Books Group.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York NY 10107. PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02142, call (617) 252-5298, or email [email protected].

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Nunberg, Geoffrey, 1945—

  Going nucular: language, politics, and culture in confrontational times / Geoffrey Nunberg.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-0-786-73864-9

  1. English language—Political aspects—United States. 2. English language—Social aspects—United States. 3. English language—United States—Semantics. 4. English language—United States—usage. 5. Political science—Terminology.

  I. Title.

  PE2809.N86 2004

  420’.973—dc22

  2003069022

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