Ascent Of The A-Word
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Ascent Of The A-Word
''Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years'' is a 2012 book by the American linguistics, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg which analyzes the history of the epithet "asshole". Overview In ''Ascent'', Nunberg traces to World War II the origins of the word as an epithet, when it was used as a term of abuse for superior officers considered abusive or self-important.Other etymologies date its origin earlier, ''e.g.'', the mid-1930s. Dictionary.com,asshole, in Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. Accessed 2012.09.24. Following the soldiers' return home from the war, the term spread to "movement radicals", and, by the 1970s, to everyday discourse as a replacement for "heel", "cad" and other milder insults. According to Nunberg, the Internet has further solidified the word's place in the English language. Popularized in part by author and Army veteran Norman Mailer in his 1948 novel ''The Naked and the Dead'', the term continued to spread into popular culture ...
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Geoffrey Nunberg
Geoffrey Nunberg (June 1, 1945– August 11, 2020) was an American lexical semantician and author. In 2001 he received the Linguistics, Language, and the Public Interest Award from the Linguistic Society of America for his contributions to National Public Radio's ''Fresh Air'', and he has published a number of popular press books including '' Going Nucular: Language, Politics and Culture in Controversial Times'' (2004). Nunberg is primarily known for his public-facing work interpreting linguistic science for lay audiences, though his contributions to linguistic theory are also well regarded. Nunberg received his doctorate from the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1977 for his dissertation, ''The Pragmatics of Reference''. Prior to his PhD, Nunberg received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied under William Labov. Following his education, Nunberg began working as a postdoctoral scholar at the ...
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Bill O'Reilly (political Commentator)
William James O'Reilly Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American conservative commentator, journalist, author, and television host. O'Reilly's broadcasting career began during the late 1970s and 1980s, when he reported for local television stations in the United States and later for CBS News and ABC News. He anchored the tabloid television program ''Inside Edition'' from 1989 to 1995. O'Reilly joined the Fox News Channel in 1996 and hosted ''The O'Reilly Factor'' until 2017. ''The O'Reilly Factor'' had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. He is the author of numerous books and hosted ''The Radio Factor'' (2002–2009). In early 2017, ''The New York Times'' reported that he and Fox News had paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly' ...
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2012 Non-fiction Books
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. In conventions of sign where zero is considered neither positive nor negative, 1 is the first and smallest positive integer. It is also sometimes considered the first of the infinite sequence of natural numbers, followed by  2, although by other definitions 1 is the second natural number, following  0. The fundamental mathematical property of 1 is to be a multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. Most if not all properties of 1 can be deduced from this. In advanced mathematics, a multiplicative identity is often denoted 1, even if it is not a number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number; this was not universally accepted until the mid-20th century. Additionally, 1 is the ...
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The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tribune Publishing. The ''Baltimore Sun's'' parent company, '' Tribune Publishing'', was acquired by Alden Global Capital, which operates its media properties through Digital First Media, in May 2021. History ''The Sun'' was founded on May 17, 1837, by printer/editor/publisher/owner Arunah Shepherdson Abell (often listed as "A. S. Abell") and two associates, William Moseley Swain, and Azariah H. Simmons, recently from Philadelphia, where they had started and published the '' Public Ledger'' the year before. Abell was born in Rhode Island, became a journalist with the ''Providence Patriot'' and later worked with newspapers in New York City and Boston.Van Doren, Charles and Robert McKendry, ed., ''Webster's American Biographies''. (Springfiel ...
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Huntington, West Virginia
Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and the largest city in the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A historic and bustling city of commerce and heavy industry, Huntington has benefited from its location on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Guyandotte River. It is home to the Port of Huntington Tri-State, the second-busiest inland port in the United States. As of the 2020 census, its metro area is the largest in West Virginia, spanning seven counties across three states and having a population of 359,862. Huntington is the second-largest city in West Virginia, with a population of 46,842 at the 2020 census. Both the city and metropolitan area declined in population from the 2010 census, a trend that has been ongoing for six decades as Huntington has lost over 40,000 residents in that time frame. Surrounded by extensive natural resources, ...
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Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month; previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economic measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Initially titled ''Bulletin'' by Kirkus' Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, the title was ...
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San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and official launch November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate" as it was known at launch was the first large market newspaper ...
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Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to 2014 and the CBS talk program ''The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'' beginning in September 2015. Colbert originally studied to be a dramatic actor, but became interested in improvisational theater while attending Northwestern University, where he met Second City director Del Close. Colbert first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago, where his troupemates included Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, comedians with whom he developed the sketch comedy series ''Exit 57''. He wrote and performed on ''The Dana Carvey Show'' before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the television series ''Strangers with Candy''. He gained attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher ...
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Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American conservative political commentator who was the host of '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nationally syndicated on AM and FM radio stations from 1988 until his death in 2021. Limbaugh became one of the most prominent conservative voices in the United States during the 1990s and hosted a national television show from 1992 to 1996. He was among the most highly paid figures in American radio history; in 2018 ''Forbes'' listed his earnings at $84.5 million. In December 2019, '' Talkers Magazine'' estimated that Limbaugh's show attracted a cumulative weekly audience of 15.5 million listeners to become the most-listened-to radio show in the United States. Limbaugh also wrote seven books; his first two, ''The Way Things Ought to Be'' (1992) and ''See, I Told You So'' (1993), made ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list. Limbaugh garnered controversy from his statemen ...
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PublicAffairs
PublicAffairs (or PublicAffairs Books) is an imprint of Perseus Books, an American book publishing company located in New York City and has been a part of the Hachette Book Group since 2016. PublicAffairs was launched in 1997 by Peter Osnos. The current Publisher is Clive Priddle. The company publishes mostly non-mainstream non-fiction books about politics and current affairs, both American and international. It has published several books by Nobel Prize-winning authors, including Muhammad Yunus’s Banker to the Poor and Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s two books Poor Economics and Good Economics for Hard Times. In 2019, it published Shoshana Zuboff’s international bestseller The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Perseus Books won Publishers Weekly's "Publisher of the Year" award for 2007. References External links Company web site* Panel discussion on the 20th anniversary of PublicAffairs Books, April 17, 2018 C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Netwo ...
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Neil Simon
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received more combined Academy Award, Oscar and Tony Award nominations than any other writer. Simon grew up in New York City during the Great Depression. His parents' financial difficulties affected their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and unstable childhood. He often took refuge in movie theaters, where he enjoyed watching early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After graduating from high school and serving a few years in the United States Army Air Forces, Army Air Force Reserve, he began writing comedy scripts for radio programs and popular early television shows. Among the latter were Sid Caesar's ''Your Show of Shows'' (where in 1950 he worked alongside other young writers including Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Sel ...
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Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing material for television in the 1950s, mainly ''Your Show of Shows'' (1950–1954) working alongside Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, and Neil Simon. He also published several books featuring short stories and wrote humor pieces for ''The New Yorker''. In the early 1960s, he performed as a stand-up comedian in Greenwich Village alongside Lenny Bruce, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, and Joan Rivers. There he developed a monologue style (rather than traditional jokes) and the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish. He released three comedy albums during the mid to late 1960s, earning a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nomination for his 1964 comedy album entitled simply '' Woody Allen''. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked A ...
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