Geoff Nunberg

'Horrific' And 'Surreal': The Words We Use To Bear Witness

Geoff Nunberg — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:51:00 +0000

Mass shootings, bus crashes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks — we've gotten adept at talking about these things. Act of God or act of man, they're all horrific. At least that was the word you kept hearing from politicians and newscasters describing the Boston bombings and the explosion at the fertilizer plant in Texas.

That may not strike you as surprising — the events were horrific, weren't they? But it's actually a new way of describing things. "Horrific" is an old word; it turns up in Thackeray and Melville. But until recent times it was rare and literary.

Even Dictionaries Grapple With Getting 'Marriage' Right

Geoff Nunberg — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:23:00 +0000

It's a funny thing about dictionaries. First we're taught to revere them, then we have to learn to set them aside. Nobody ever went wrong starting a middle-school composition with, "According to Webster's ..." but that's not how you start an op-ed commentary about terrorism or racism.

Historical Vocab: When We Get It Wrong, Does It Matter?

Geoff Nunberg — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:05:00 +0000

Has there ever been an age that was so grudging about suspending its disbelief? The groundlings at the Globe Theatre didn't giggle when Shakespeare had a clock chime in Julius Caesar. The Victorians didn't take Dickens to task for having the characters in A Tale of Two Cities ride the Dover mail coach 10 years before it was established. But Shakespeare and Dickens weren't writing in the age of the Internet, when every historical detail is scrutinized for chronological correctness, and when no "Gotcha!" remains unposted for long.

"The Whole Nine Yards" Of What?

Geoff Nunberg — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:19:00 +0000

Where does the phrase "the whole nine yards" come from? In 1982, William Safire called that "one of the great etymological mysteries of our time."

He thought the phrase originally referred to the capacity of a cement truck in cubic yards.

Forget YOLO: Why 'Big Data' Should Be The Word Of The Year

Geoff Nunberg — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:48:00 +0000

"Big Data" hasn't made any of the words-of-the-year lists I've seen so far. That's probably because it didn't get the wide public exposure given to items like "frankenstorm," "fiscal cliff" and YOLO.