Geoffrey Nunberg

How the media reports on crude language when a public figure is caught using it on tape. . . for instance Donald Trump.

Alien, illegal, undocumentated, immigrant — the debate over immigration policy is also about the words used by the various sides. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says the language of immigration has been controversial for as long as immigration has been an issue in American life.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the derogative words used to describe many of Donald Trump's supporters - words like hillbilly, white trash, and redneck, and what those words say about class conflict.

Political analysts have been dividing the country into red states and blue states for several elections now, but it's only in the last year or two that the distinction has really caught on with the media and the public. As our linguist Geoff Nunberg points out, the odd thing is that the new usage seems to reverse the traditional political meanings of red and blue.

Donald Trump's pledge to be the "law and order" candidate revived a slogan that's associated with Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. Many people have heard that phrase as racially coded, then and now. But linguist Geoff Nunber notes, its resonances aren't quite the same as they were back then.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the proper terminology for describing white-collar fraudster Bernie Madoff, from the Dickensian "scoundrel" to the plebeian "scumbag."

The French are having a huge cultural row over some spelling changes the government is about to put into effect. It leads our linguist Geoff Nunberg to wonder why we never have controversies over spelling like the French do. Why do we insist on putting up with a spelling system that everybody acknowledges is a chaotic mess?

Linguist Geoff Nunberg says it's fitting that the Scripps National Spelling Bee is broadcast by ESPN. (And, by the way, a thamakau is a kind of canoe used in Fiji.)

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the roots and resonance of the latest tech buzzword to catapult into the mainstream. "Disrupt" may be ubiquitous now, but could the term be on the eve of a disruption?

Wikipedia editor Bryan Henderson has made it his crusade to edit out the phrase "comprised of" in more than 5 million articles. While his quest is harmless, it shows that zealots can dominate the Web.