It is, he wrote, “a word we reserve for members of our own tribe: the boss who takes credit for your work, the neighbors who get on your case for putting out your garbage the night before, or maybe a well-known politician or celebrity.”
His other books include three collections, “The Way We Talk Now” (2001), “The Years of Talking Dangerously” (2009), and “Talking Right” (2006), about the way Republicans and conservatives have transformed political language.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Nunberg is survived by his sister, Barbara Nunberg, and his daughter, Sophie Nunberg. His marriage to Anne Fougeron ended in divorce.
In the late 1990s, Mr. Nunberg turned his linguistic focus to the long debate over the use of Redskins as the name for Washington’s National Football League team. He testified on behalf of a group of Native Americans to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, bringing evidence that the name was disparaging.
“You can say you don’t mean it as a slur,” he told The Northwest Herald of Woodstock, Ill., in 2001. “But that doesn’t change the meaning of the word.”
Although the board canceled the trademarks covering the Redskins name, a federal judge reinstated them in 2003. The case ended in 2017, when the Supreme Court ruled that potentially disparaging trademarks are protected by the First Amendment.
Last month, however, the team dropped the name under pressure from sponsors.
“Geoff was ahead of his time on the Redskins issue,” Mr. Zimmer said. “I’m glad he lived long enough to see the Redskins name fall by the wayside, even if it didn’t happen in the courts.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/books/geoffrey-nunberg-dead.html
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