This is a fun but also very informative conversation about the A-word-- how it's used, manipulated, abused and who are the biggest and who is the quintessential American Asshole.

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Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist, is a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information. Since 1987, he has done a language feature on NPR's "Fresh Air," and his commentaries have appeared in the New York Times and many other publications. He is the emeritus chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary and a winner of the Linguistic Society of America's Language and the Public Interest Award. His previous books include Talking Right and Going Nucular. Nunberg lives in San Francisco.

http://geoffreynunberg.com/

Rough notes (mostly my questions) from the interview

What are the rules for using the words on the air, on the radio?

What is the definition of asshole and assholism?

What about assholism? What's that about?

What made you write this book?

How about the history?

George Patton was first military leader it was applied to.

Brought home by GIs.

Became part of american lexicon in 1969, 1970.

Some of your observations on the word came out of your work on the book, TALKING RIGHT, and your observation of right wing radio. 

Can you give an example of how right wingers set up a liberal as an asshole, then attack the person?

You've named some names. 

This is more a male phenomenon than female. 

When a woman does something that would qualify her to be called an asshole if a man did it, we tend to call her a bitch.

Is there a defense to the attack of right wingers who set some one up as being an asshole?

Is there a repartee to being called an asshole?

Can you talk about your book TALKING RIGHT, how conservatives used language?

Frank Luntz has been effective in framing words that carry conservative valence.

Luntz's words are not as significant as" values,   liberty, freedom, government-- talk about public-- not government

What can the left do once words have been taken by the right?

Can you talk about George Bush calling Adam Clymer an asshole?

What's the story about the repeal of reticence-- shifting from victorian inhibitions on the use of the names of body parts, sexuality" 

This ties into the vulgarity factor, using asshole instead of words like cad or jerk

"When we call somebody an asshole, we look from the bottom up."

Vulgarity is always connected to class. It's connected to the idea of being part of the proletariat. We're expressing our anger at the figures that we think"

Any other ways that there's bottom-up language?

I said this was an age of assholism" 

I think we have more opportunities for behaving this way and responding to people who are behaving this way. 

Are there other aspects of language that are emerging that are more bottom up than top down?

"much more informal-- language of blogs, language of NY Times, sentences are shorter. anguage is becoming more simple. 

You say "I'm not really interested in assholes, so much as assholism, along with its close relation assholery." What is that about?

This is an extraordinarily interesting, entertaining book. When the reader is done reading it, what will he get out of it?

Most Americans are not into political correctness. Where does that fit in to this discussion?

Do you have a list of the biggest assholes? What about an asshole museum?

"Donald Trump is the quintessential American asshole."

Are there other people who have become famous because they're assholes?

It's a career move to become an asshole in American life? Why's that?

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.

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and at Google Groups listserve Bottom-up Top-down conversation