Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Confrontational Times by Geoffrey Nunberg

★★★

It's a fascinating collection of short articles about how words are used in the English language, particularly how the connotations of words develop and change as Americans use them within specific contexts. Nunberg covers the gamut from politics (discussing the use of words like "freedom," "fascist," and "compromise") to business (contemplating the rise of "vision statements" and jargon like "best of breed" and "thought-leading research") to popular culture (defending the validity of "like" and the concept of blogs as an altogether new entity, not just an online version of a journal). Anyway, it's a really interesting and fun book.