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Fresh AIr linguist Geoff Nunberg

In memoriam: Geoff Nunberg

Fresh Air remembers its longtime language commentator, who died on August 11, 2020. He was 75-years-old. 

 

Since his debut on Fresh Air in 1987, Geoff recorded hundreds of segments for the show, discussing how pop culture, technology, the business world, and politics keep changing our language, and the ways in which language evolves over time with each new generation. His "Word of the Year" selections were eagerly anticipated by Fresh Air staff and fans alike. This collection includes a small sampling of some of our favorite Geoff Nunberg segments from his many years on the show.

 

We miss Geoff enormously. He will always be a member of the Fresh Air family.

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07:44

After Years Of Restraint, A Linguist Says 'Yes!' To The Exclamation Point

The only literary work about punctuation I'm aware of is an odd early story by Anton Chekhov called "The Exclamation Mark." After getting into an argument with a colleague about punctuation, a school inspector named Yefim Perekladin asks his wife what an exclamation point is for. She tells him it signifies delight, indignation, joy and rage. He realizes that in 40 years of writing official reports, he has never had the need to express any of those emotions.

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03:22

On Accents in Movies

Language commentator Geoff Nunberg considers why actors adopt foreign or regional accents in film -- and why they sometimes speak in their natural voice, regardless of the part they play.

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03:47

Corporate Speak as Linguistic Shell Game

Language commentator Geoff Nunberg argues that the increasingly insular and unintelligible vocabulary of businesses stems from a growing adherence to corporate culture.

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06:32

Opinion: 'Nationalist' Arises, With Myriad Connotations, As The Word Of 2018

President Trump has a penchant for breathing new life into expressions with troubled pasts, like "America first" and "enemy of the people." It's not likely his uses of those phrases will survive his presidency. But he may have altered the political lexicon more enduringly at a Houston rally two weeks before the elections, when he proclaimed himself a "nationalist" and urged his supporters to use the word.

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03:51

The False Crisis of Poor Enunciation

Linguist Geoff Nunberg says that the attention paid to how people talk says more about class status and regionalism than a decline in effective communication. He explains.

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52:30

Daughter of Warhol star looks back on a bohemian childhood in the Chelsea Hotel

Alexandra Auder's mother, Viva, was one of Andy Warhol's muses. Growing up in Warhol's orbit meant Auder's childhood was an unusual one. For several years, Viva, Auder and Auder's younger half-sister, Gaby Hoffmann, lived in the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. It was was famous for having been home to Leonard Cohen, Dylan Thomas, Virgil Thomson, and Bob Dylan, among others.

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43:04

This fake 'Jury Duty' really put James Marsden's improv chops on trial

In the series Jury Duty, a solar contractor named Ronald Gladden has agreed to participate in what he believes is a documentary about the experience of being a juror--but what Ronald doesn't know is that the whole thing is fake.

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