Word: savane
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Move over, William Safire. Leslie Savan has arrived, and she has a whole book instead of measley New York Times columns...
...Savan doesn’t do much more with her 270 pages than Safire does with his two weekly columns, but really, it doesn’t matter. This is pop non-fiction: not life-changing or even particularly edifying...
...Savan is both a lover and a loather of pop language, which she defines as “verbal expression that is widely popular and part of popular culture.” She continues, “Beyond that, it’s language that pops out of its surround; conveys more attitude than literal meaning; pulses with a sense of an invisible chorus speaking it, too; and, when properly inflected, pulls attention, and probably consensus, its way.” Her voice in the book is like that of the dieter sitting in front of an ice cream sundae...
...convey, and it deserves partial credit for the book’s success. A book like this could have veered too far in the direction of condemnation and alienated hoi polloi, or fallen into bland history, which would have killed it before it hit the shelves. As it is, Savan sheepishly employs the same language that she lovingly derides, and one gets the sense that she was blushing as she wrote certain passages...
...rest of the credit goes to the incredible research behind the book, which preempts potential criticisms concerning timeliness and relevance of the work. Savan writes, “it’s not a word’s freshness date that makes it pop but its degree of persuasive power,” and “a good 93.8 percent of the time we don’t talk pop—but looking at why we do when we do and how it affects communication is my focus.” A third objection—that people...