The book seemed to have started as a website. The book was surprisingly uninteresting to read (at least in trying to keep my attention). Maybe I was expecting more colorful back stories or it could have been Mr. Wilton’s writing style, but it wasn’t a “fun” reading for me. An interesting topic though.

I have not seen the PBS documentary, but this is its companion book on the American dialect and how they are changing.

Some of it was interesting, but I thought they lacked the depth and I felt that it was really made for the PBS documentary.

Another collection of interesting articles by Mr. Nunberg. I really enjoyed it. However, my brain can’t seem to hold on to much of the actual contents. :p

As with his other collections, it’s pretty convenient to carry around for reading in between other stuff.

Geoffrey Nunberg is a linguist often featured on NPR’s “Fresh Air”. I’ve always found his comments on the language usages and origins fascinating, so when I heard about his current collection, Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times, I’ve decided to get both.

This book is a collection of his commentaries on the show (and some other columns for others, I think) from 1996 to 2001. It started slow, but some sections (“Word Histories” and “Politics of the English Language” for me) were very interesting.

The best part about the format for me is that each article is short. It’s something you can carry along with you and read whenever you have some time on your hand without trying to remember where you left off.

I first heard about this book on NPR (as usual). Although I thought the joke was a bit weak, I liked the concept of the book. The book was not like a reference book on punctuation although it describes several usage rules for some punctuation marks; it was more like a collection of essays on several punctuation marks that Ms. Truss felt like talking about.

It was easy to go through (and the book wasn’t that long), and although I could have really learned everything about punctuation mark usages, I really didn’t care that much. I was more into the narratives. And I did learn a few new things: I never realized that there was a missing apostrophe in Two Weeks Notice.

I recommend it to anyone mildly anal about a few things. :p

On the book, A Beautiful Mind… I shouldn’t have been really surprised, but again, I find the difference between the Hollywood version and the biographical accounts, having a significant different feeling. A lot of the detailed episodes in the movie to depict the various situations aren’t even mentioned in the book (e.g., the insight at the bar, the nightly delivery, etc.). Maybe those stories were from a private exchange between the movie makers and the Nashes, but still, I found it interesting. Also, the movie does not mention that Alicia and John Forbes are divorced (I think they still are) and didn’t see each other for more than a decade, although she eventually took care of him. Nor does the movie mention that John Forbes had a son outside the marriage (before the marriage to Alicia).

I am not saying what Alicia and John Forbes has gone through is anything less just because of those missing facts from the movie. Actually, I can admire them as human beings because of them. I think it’s almost always more interesting to have your own interpretation of the events than to be fed with someone else’s interpretation.

I don’t have much accents in my English even though I spent the most of my first 24 years in Korea. This often puts people around me and myself in a bit awkward (?) place.

For example, at a wedding reception of one of my friends recently in Seattle, I was talking to one of the guests I just met at the reception. We were talking for a while and since she was doing a sociology research on Asian immigrants, I mentioned that it has been 7 years since I came to the U.S. Her response was, “Really? So did you attend an international school there?” No, I didn’t, I said. An expression of surprise continued for a while.

Anyway, the thing is, because of my English and my shallow, but broad knowledge of some segments of the popular American culture, even some of my American friends seem to often forget that I didn’t grow up here. So once in a while, I am often faced with a perplexed expression. On the same weekend, Sanjeev (who grew up here) and I were talking about something and he mentioned a children’s story that every American kid should know about. I had no idea, and he looked at me funny. I had to explain that I didn’t grow up here and there are certain things I have no idea about.

And recently I realized that not only this happens to people around me, but also to myself. Because I am not a typical Korean and I am fairly comfortable with English, I often seem to think that I would act as any American would. The thing is, I may not be a typical Korean, but I am not a typical American either. When it comes to my feelings and instincts, I am following what I am used to, a lot of which happens to be quite “Korean”. Also I don’t have any reason or intention to deny that fact. It’s just that I am often surprised at myself for being such a “Korean” (whatever that may be).

Maybe I am having an identity crisis at the ripe age of 31. :p