Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times

by Geoffrey Nunberg

The words that echo through Geoffrey Nunberg's brilliant new journey across the landscape of American language evoke exactly the tenor of our times. Nunberg has a wonderful ear for the new, the comic and the absurd. He pronounces that: "‘Blog' is a syllable whose time has come," and that "You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right," with which he launches into the effect of Google on our collective consciousness. Nunberg hears the shifting use of "Gallic" as we suddenly find ourselves in bitter opposition to the French; perhaps only Nunberg could compare America the Beautiful with a Syrian national anthem that contains the line "A land resplendent with brilliant suns...almost like a sky centipede."

At the heart of the entertainment and linguistic slapstick that Nunberg delights in are the core concerns that have occupied American minds. "Going Nucular," the title piece, is more than a bit of fun at the President's expense. Nunberg's analysis is as succinct a summary of the questions that hover over the administration's strategy as any political insider's. It exemplifies the message of the book: that in the smallest ticks and cues of language the most important issue and thoughts of our times can be heard and understood. If you know how to listen for them. Nunberg has dazzling receptors, perfect acoustics and a deftly elegant style to relay his wit and wisdom.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Politics, Language, Essays

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Geoff Nunberg is a linguist and professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information in Berkeley, California, USA. He is also a frequent contributor to the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air".

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Going Nucular is a collection of essays and commentaries that originally appeared mostly in the New York Times or on Fresh Air (NPR), along with a couple original pieces, each about five pages long. This makes the whole book very light and enjoyable, and easy to breeze through pretty quickly, but nearly all the essays are still very interesting and Nunberg is as always spot-on in his linguistic observations. There is a progressive bent, as in his other material, but it doesn't matter so much if what you're really interested in is language and how it's used both in the media and in popular culture in general. I especially enjoyed some of the commentaries on corporate culture, because you see less of this typically than of political stuff, but nearly every essay has something to recommend it.[return]The only really negative thing about the book for me was that because the pieces were all written between about 2001 and 2003, there is a very heavy focus on September 11 and the Iraq War (Afghanistan too), but that's clearly because that's where the media - and the public - has been focused too.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal collection of Nunberg’s columns on subtle contemporary uses of language. The titular example: Nunberg was one of the first to argue (among other things) that George W. Bush’s stubborn refusal to accept the correct pronunciation is an effort to remind everyone that we have, colloquially, “nukes.” Lot of fun observations like that, well argued and well written.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does President Bush drives you nuts every time you hear him mispronounce 'nuclear'? Think he's just a moron? Geoffrey Nunberg explains the real reason he says 'nucular'...it's more insidious than you think. This book is funny (not just dry grammatical stuff, although the author is a serious linguist) and explores what language reveals about our changing attitudes. Like, wow.

[Jennifer Abdo · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is a 20 year old book im taking in 2021 by a linguist who died in 2020. I think I found it at a thrift store and bought it for the annoying use of "nucular." I wanted to read it before I passed it on or stuck it in a little library. I didnt know who Nunberg was before this, but spent he did segments on NPR and this is a collection of them. It was a decent read, though definitely written by a white guy in the post 9/11 islamophobic era, I'll just say that. Though I will say some of his essays on pronouns made me wonder how he'd take the nonbinary pronoun usage. I looked up a more recent essay and good for him, he accepted it. I hope he'd have learned as much about his racism (arab things and Islam was alien to him) and ableism (get back on one's meds) in 20 years, though i didn't look that up.

The word nucular. What we've been waiting for. The author's friend who uses the mispronunciation only says it with weapons, not "nucular family," indicating a choice -- a thinko, not a typo. The speculation on various presidents' usage scratched an itch too.

In the first chapter: "That's what predestination comes down to in these postmeritocratic times; it's a matter of going through the motions of equal access at the same time you're frantically trying to game the system."
So naturally, i agree and am drawn in.

The whole chapter Prurient Interests is a great one. If we used a clear common word like "dirty" this legal definition of obscenity that includes prurient sounds ridiculous. That was what i gathered, but the author and i may have different experiences with regard to how the whole chastity thing (purity culture?) affected us.

Beleaguered Infidels was a bit embarrassing. He didn't grow up in the church setting i did - they threw around infidel all the time. His ignorance of jihad may have been just characteristic of the early 2000s, but he could've done better.

In Foreign Parts, he's not bothered by journalists messing up "exotic" Arabic place names, which comes off a bit racist. He notes the French do fine with it. I would ask him, then why let us off the hook??

P121 Orwellian!! People just discussed this attempted adoption by the right a bd how they don't even mean 1984-esque. This article discusses how the term means 1984 dystopia rather than like Orwell the socialist.

P135 Where the Left Commences- as interesting a discussion now as in 2003.

P166 Discussing patriotism (always interesting) and how Abbie Hoffman at the HUAC was arrested for wearing a US flag shirt and now pro war demonstrators dress in all manner of flag paraphernalia. "...hard to tell a patrotic demonstration from a gathering of Oakland Raiders fans." He concludes by saying bring back the term, but I disagree. I always like essays of what patriotism is to us.

P165 Still in The Last Refuge of Scoundrels and Other People, it's funny that he gets that McCarthyism held every left wing activity un-American but he appears to have a disdain for "tantrums of flag burning" during the Vietnam war protests.

P168 Pledge Break. As with patriotism, there's plenty of material to mull over in the pledge. Like "under God." Why it was added and how the pledge resembles the loyalty oath southerners had to swear. And the French phrase that was nixed. Mostly it's fine that no one knows what it means definitively. "As Eric Hobsbawn once observed, patriotic rituals are indebted to provide the emotional signs of membership in a club, not its bylaws."

P175 Rush Limbaugh's Plurals. Well, something he thinks isn't racist definitely is. White men aren't good at assessing that. But the main point is good on tv vs radio.

There's an interesting if dated assessment of the Internet in the early 2000s. It's kind of cute. Funny to read 20 years later. It's not all wrong, but a lot has changed. Also he asserts pretty offensively that people who put stuff online in blogs and such don't have a life.

---
Other than some racism and odd, outdated notions like America still rewards dedication and hard work, this is still a fun look at how the meanings of words change or can mean contradictory things through time.

[Raymond Lam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book for word nerds and good writing fans. It is a collection of well written, witty, column essays by Berkeley linguist Nunberg that  offers, not only  the origins and evolutions of common English words, but also the contextual analysis of their current use in media, politics, contemporary vernacular.

Eisenhower was the first one to deliver the public gaffe of "nucular". "Regime" implies a temporary and nefarious political power. "Like" evolves from 50s hipster's use of turning what is said into an extended simile into 80s teenager's quotation marker prior to a situation narrative.  The quaint word  "infidel" popped up into current usage after 9/11.  "Caucasian"  is an inaccurate anthropological term with a hilarious origin of being the location of where Noah's ark landed. "Freedom" becomes more in vogue than "liberty". Variety of "slippery slope": letting the camel's nose into the tent, domino effect, snowball effect. Orwell's warned about being "Orwellian". Conservatives like to use polysyndeton (repeated "ands"). Rush Limbaugh's plurals. "Appeasement" means capitulation and never carries good political connotation.

There were essays on adverbs (Adverbially yours), curse words (Obscenity Rap), and acronyms (Letter Perfect) that were particularly entertaining

[Rukesh Reddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally appeared interesting but I abandoned at maybe 20%. Some good concepts but couldn't sustain my interest (though I like words and language, which is what this book is all about). Could of course be my fault (got a paperback which is not an easy format for me, was I distracted, would it have picked up steam later, ...?)

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers words used in mostly political or historical situations. I found some chapters interesting while others seemed too drawn out or uninteresting. The chapters each cover one word, and are short, so you can skip around if you like.

[Mark Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection of essays. Some of the content is a bit dated (2001-2003).

[Jon]

Nunberg, a humanities professor and NPR commentator, sometimes gets too clever, as when he says we've gone "from courtly love to Courtney Love"--ah, don't go there, Teach--but as a rule he wears his learning lightly, making GOING NUCULAR an entertaining and enlightening experience for anyone interested in the current state of the English language. I prefer this book to his TALKING RIGHT, in which he makes the inevitable complaint about how Mike Dukakis should have responded ANGRILY to Bernard Shaw's question about whether he'd support the death penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. Personally, I thought Dukakis' reasoned response was the only admirable act taken by either major-party candidate during that whole wretched 1988 election. (And shame on Mario Cuomo for offering the obligatory ANGRY response when he was asked the same question.) Reading GOING NUCULAR, I noticed Nunberg and I share certain quirks, such as a distaste for using the word "beautiful." He's probably a fun guy to chat with over coffee or a drink.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dangerously enjoyable collection of the author’s more interesting commentaries – from both radio and print – regarding the origin and/or evolution of how certain words are used in our modern discourse. It was enjoyable to read the brief stories behind many of the changes I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. The danger is that it brought me the verge of obsessively pursuing my own investigations into how additional manipulative verbal associations have been cultivated and employed since this book was published in 2004.

Many of the commentaries left me disappointed by their brevity, which was probably due of time constraints, as it appears most were done as a feature of the radio show Fresh Air. More disappointing was the fact that it was published before, and therefore doesn’t cover, the monumental assault now underway on the vocabulary available for reasoned discussion.

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a fascinating collection of short articles about how words are used in the English language, particularly how the connotations of words develop and change as Americans use them within specific contexts. Nunberg covers the gamut from politics (discussing the use of words like "freedom," "fascist," and "compromise") to business (contemplating the rise of "vision statements" and jargon like "best of breed" and "thought-leading research") to popular culture (defending the validity of "like" and the concept of blogs as an altogether new entity, not just an online version of a journal). Anyway, it's a really interesting and fun book.

[Stephanie H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going Nucular is an amazing collection of Nunberg's essays from 2003 on a variety of subjects involving media and political speech. He introduces a variety of new thoughts including the idea of "thinkos" expressed in his chapter "Going Nucular".

Although not as closely related to nuclear policy as one might hope given the title, it provides a wonderfully informative, often amusing account of political language. Moreover, it brings back memories of the Bush years and delightful SNL skits

[Rebecca Dimond · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for word nerds and those who take interest in culture and politics. Sprinkled with humor and astute observations, Nunberg's essays not only describe the evolution of various words and phrases, but puts in to context the new ones, bringing clarity to terms we hear frequently but never give much thought to in regards to their origins. Fantastic. I hearted it. -=0)

[Mary Whisner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful short pieces ("Fresh Air" commentaries and newspaper pieces) on language. I particularly liked the one about the negative branding of "liberal." Why is it that newspapers use "middle-class liberals" and "middle-class Democrats" with about the same frequency, but hardly ever say "working class liberals"? (That term is outnumbered by "working-class Democrats" about 30-1.)

[Lars · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, smart, fun read of Nunberg's columns and commentaries about word usage in the early 2000s. If you're interested in words, history, and grammar, I highly recommend this book. Important note: it's not that much about President Bush, and it lacks the invective you expect from the dust jacket description; Nunberg mostly remains politically neutral.

[Olga Werby · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you find politics entertaining, you might want to check out how language is carefully chosen to make you believe and trust a particular politician or a campaign slogan. A book that highlights the use of language in politics is Geoffrey Nunberg’s “Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times.” You will be thoroughly manipulated by the end.

[Travelling Cari]

I read The Way We Talk Now [http://bookcrossing.com/journal/3670450] about a year and a half ago and quite enjoyed it. Have had this book for nearly three years and have meant to read it, just never quite happened. Picked it up the other night and have enjoyed it so far.

[Marc van Bree · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of essays, covering a vast array of themes and topic. Most of them are interesting, some more than others, but all of them only scratch the surface and aren't nearly as in-depth as I would have liked. Pop culture linguistics.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book about language. It was thought provoking. I especially liked the essay about the word "like" and its usage.

[Robb · Rating 2 out of 5]

very interesting and pithy, if not annoyingly Left picking on needlessly easy targets at times.

[Litbitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, accessible essays on the use of language, pronunciation, and grammar in contemporary society, particularly politics.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

short essays on the ever changing uses and definitions of words, especially during wartime. this is great bathroom reading.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting essays on culture and language.

[Peggy]

i had a very interesting linguistics prof who assigned this book

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific short essays on the culture of language and the language of culture.

[Kyla]

currently v disappointed for choosing a different book over this one on my last trip to the bookstore. the one I chose does not live up to its back cover.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting history/study of current buzzwords and phrases. i have to admit, the authors vocabulary was a little over my head at times.

[Michal Wigal]

Some great musings on how the meanings and uses of different words has changed over time. Delves into how politicians change the meanings of words to suit their needs.

[Stefan Castino · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little sprawly. Interesting though.

[Alva Cardona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geoffrey Nunberg is no Umberto Eco when it comes to semantics, but he's one great Linguist, and this is one great book. The evolution of language is a constant in our society, and we should be aware of how it happens.

Semantic progression happens because of so many factors, but the ones that definitely affect and influence language the most have got to be politics and capitalism.

This is why we've got to stay vigilant about that process. This book helps with creating awareness of it though, of how language is used to change meaning of fundamental concepts and manipulate the masses (even to transform perspectives and alter paradigms), so I recommend it.

It's a "must-read" if you work in politics, or the media.