I never really had much of an interest in language or how it evolves. I enjoy Fresh Air and had the book recommended to me by Heterodoxus. Well not so much recommended as made required reading.

For some reason that’s probably related to my ADD, I like books of essays. Sometimes, though, the forest can get lost in the trees.  I feel like Numberg (or his editor) did an excellent job putting together a cohesive book with all of the essays.

I especially enjoyed the chapter called The Burbs. In particular, I liked his quote from the song “Little Boxes” by Malvina Renolds:

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

I appreciate her distaste for the suburbs.

I also enjoyed his discussion of the “N-Word.” I think that can be a difficult issue to touch on without pissing a lot of people off and I feel like Numberg handled it well.

I’ll Dark Damien and Heterodoxus handle the rest. Come check out the discussion at the Neamhspleachas FB Page.

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Just a reminder that we will be discussing “The Way We Talk Now” by Geoffrey Nunberg on Friday.  Heterdoxus will be doing one review and Dark Damien will be doing the other.

We’re going to try out a new format this month. We’re going to have the whole discussion on the new Neamhspleach Facebook page. The January Book Club event will be on January 28th, with the entire discussion happening on the event wall. We’ll try out the new format and see how it goes.

Check out all the discussion on Friday!