Jul 9, 2019

Madras Courier Reviews the Rise of the “A-Word,” Referencing Nunberg’s Research

From Madras Courier

The Rise & Rise of the ‘Asshole’

By Madras Courier

This article contains expletives. Your mom won’t like you reading it. But you'll learn about a new philosophical construct...

The linguist, Geoff Nunberg — a full Professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley — spent years researching about how the word ‘asshole,’ climbed up the hierarchy in the pecking order of expletives and emerged victoriously into the hall of popular fame. He published his research into an entertaining and thought-provoking book — Ascent of the A Word: Assholism, The First Sixty Years...

But as Geoff Nunberg writes, “it sometimes seems as if every corner of our public discourse is riddled with people depicting one another as assholes and treating them accordingly, whether or not they actually use the word.”

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Last updated:

July 11, 2019