Geoffrey Nunberg facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Geoffrey Nunberg
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Nunberg moderating a panel at the UC Berkeley School of Information in 2006
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| Born | June 1, 1945 |
| Died | August 11, 2020 (aged 75) |
| Education | Columbia University (BA) University of Pennsylvania (MA) City University of New York (PhD) |
| Occupation | Linguist, author |
| Known for | Work on lexical semantics |
Geoffrey Nunberg (born June 1, 1945 – died August 11, 2020) was an American language expert and writer. He was known for studying how words get their meaning. In 2001, he won an award for explaining language science to the public. He did this through his work on National Public Radio's Fresh Air show. He also wrote several popular books, like Going Nucular: Language, Politics and Culture in Controversial Times (2004). Nunberg was especially good at making complex language ideas easy for everyone to understand.
Nunberg earned his PhD from the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1977. Before that, he got his first degree from Columbia University. He then earned a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. After finishing school, Nunberg worked as a researcher at the University of California Berkeley. He was also a visiting professor at Stanford University. In the mid-1980s, he joined the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) and worked there until 2001. Later, he returned to research at Stanford and Berkeley.
Nunberg passed away on August 11, 2020, after a long illness.
Early Life and Education
Geoffrey Nunberg was born in 1945. His mother was a high school teacher, and his father worked in real estate. He grew up in the suburbs near New York City. As a teenager, he was interested in the "beatnik" scene. This was a creative and artistic movement in nearby Greenwich Village.
He went to Scarsdale High School and then started at Columbia University. However, he left Columbia to study art at the Art Students League of New York. While in art school, he started writing as a hobby. Eventually, he left art school to go back to Columbia, where he earned his Bachelor's degree.
Language Interests and Writing
As a linguist, Nunberg was best known for his work on lexical semantics. This is the study of how words get their meaning. He also looked at ideas like polysemy, which is when a word has many meanings (like "bank" for a river or a place for money). He also studied deferred reference, which is when you use a word to mean something related but not exactly what it usually means. Another area he explored was indexicality, which is how words point to things in the real world, like "here" or "now."
Nunberg also wrote a lot about how new technologies affect language and society. For example, he spoke out about how Google Books organized its information. This led to a big discussion among librarians and scholars.
He often wrote for Language Log, a popular blog about language.
Since 1988, Nunberg was a regular guest on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program. On the show, he talked about language, how words are used, and society. His comments on language also appeared often in The New York Times and other newspapers. He was also in charge of a group that advised on how words are used in the American Heritage Dictionary.
His books for general readers include:
- The Way We Talk Now: Commentaries on Language and Culture from NPR's Fresh Air
- Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times
- Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show
- The Years of Talking Dangerously (2009)
He also helped write The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.
His last book, Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years, came out in August 2012. A critic named Malcolm Jones said that Nunberg's way of studying the topic in that book was very fresh. He would "take a word, and the attitudes behind it and see where they came from and what they might say about us."
