I'm an adjunct full professor at UC Berkeley's School of Information. I'm also a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University, and a consulting professor in the Stanford Department of Linguistics. My linguistics research includes work in semantics and pragmatics, text classification, and written-language structure, and I also work and write on the social and cultural implications of digital technologies.

I serve as chair of the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. I do a feature on language on the NPR show "Fresh Air" and have written numerous commentaries on language for the Sunday New York Times Week in Review, as well as for other periodicals. I've also contributed occasional "letters from America" to the BBC4 series "State of the Union."

For the that-and-a-nickel-will-get-you-on-the-subway file: I have a Bacon number of 3 and an Erdös number of 5, making for an Erdös-Bacon number of 8.

Books

My most recent book is (deep breath now) 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 (PublicAffairs, July 2006). It was chosen as one of 10 best nonfiction books of 2006 by Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly. Reviews & Discussion

My previous book Going Nucular (PublicAffairs, 2004) was selected by Amazon.com as one of the 10 best nonfiction books of 2004 and as one of the "top 10 books of the year" by  January magazine and the San Jose Mercury News. It was also named best language book of the year by the Hartford Courant and listed among the year's best language books by the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe

Some recent "Fresh Air" pieces:

Where the "Elites" Meet, 4/25/08
Under the Bus, 4/22/08
Pause for Thought (on "um") 4/14/08
Conversation Stopper (4/3/08)
Puttin on the Style (Wm. F. Buckley's vocabulary) 3/17/08
Chump Change 1/14/08
There are no Postmodernists in a Foxhole (the pedestrian mind of Stanley Fish), 4/20/2002

Other Fresh Air pieces

Some pieces from the Sunday New York Times Week in Review:

Other recent commentaries & pieces

Going nuclear
Going nuclear