Going nucular

"The words that echo through Geoff Nunberg's new journey across the landscape of American language evoke exactly the tenor of our times. Nunberg has an ear for the new, the comic, and the absurd. He pronounces that "'Blog' is a syllable whose time has come," and that "You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right," with which he launches into the effect of Google on our collective consciousness. Nunberg hears the shifting use of "Gallic" as we suddenly find ourselves in bitter opposition to the French; he's fiercely funny in his demystification of economists who can't deal…