Bryan Garner, author, lexicographer, and subject of David Foster Wallace’s essay Authority and American Usage, joins Brian to talk about their mutual love of language. Bryan also explains the fight between descriptivists and prescriptivists, how his life changed after Mr. Wallace’s essay ran in Harper’s Magazine and Consider the Lobster, and the story of how he brought Justice Scalia and David Foster Wallace together. In addition, Bryan discusses why he thinks Steven Pinker’s new book on language “isn’t very good,” the definition of the term SNOOT, and how prescriptivists may have literally lost the fight on the definition of literally.

Topics this week:

Modern American Usage by Bryan Garner

LawProse.org provider of CLE training in legal writing, editing, and drafting

Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage by David Foster Wallace

Authority and American Usage by David Foster Wallace

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

Millers Crossing a film by the Coen brothers

Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

Quack This Way by Bryan Garner and David Foster Wallace

The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

“Sorry. Dr. Gove ain’t in.” New Yorker Cartoon by Alan Dunn

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky

The Originalist a play by John Strand

The Palace Thief by Ethan Canin

WBUR interview with Bryan Garner and David Foster Wallace

The Financier – Theodore Dreiser

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger

Fearing’s Restaurant in Dallas, TX with Chef Dean Fearing

David Brinkley: A Memoir by David Brinkley

 

People this week:

@BryanAGarner

@SAPinker

@PomonaCollege

@DeanFearing

Former President George W. Bush

Jay-Z

Brian Williams

Justice Antonin Scalia

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Claremont Colleges

 

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @briankoppelman

Rate us on iTunes: itunes.com/themoment

 

This episode of The Moment is sponsored by Quickbooks Self Employed. Visit tryselfemployed.com/moment for your free 30 day trial. And by Stamps.com. Buy and print official U.S. postage using your own computer and printer, and save up to 80 percent compared with a postage meter. Sign up for a no-risk trial and a $110 bonus offer when you visit Stamps.com and use the promo code MOMENT.

To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices