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Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in Your Life, the Media, Business, Politics, and, Like, Whatever
 
 
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Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in Your Life, the Media, Business, Politics, and, Like, Whatever (Hardcover)

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4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Savan, a former Village Voice columnist and Pulitzer finalist for her analysis of advertising, is a cultural pessimist in the tradition of Paul Fussell and Neil Postman. Her target here is the "verbal kudzu" of "pop" language: catchphrases and buzz words spread by the media that are, she says, replacing thought with preprogrammed verbal responses. The longer she goes on, though, the more her definition of "pop" expands to include any modern locution she doesn't like, until even words like "agenda" come under attack. As Savan guiltily admits, her own prose is laden with such language, and though she tries to use it ironically, she quickly sails over the boundary separating skillful deployment of a well-chosen cliché or two from annoying repetition of hundreds. Her argument is further weakened by its lack of focus. More often than not, her only proof of a phrase's deleterious effect on society is a list of public utterances. Serious cultural issues occasionally emerge, like the spread of black slang to white society. But overall, this rambling, self-conscious diatribe against what Savan views as the media-marketing complex veers more toward grumbling than strong social critique.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist

Language mavens rejoice! This new book by three-time Pulitzer finalist Savan is spunky, well reasoned, perceptive, and massively entertaining. It's a nearly encyclopedic catalog of what the author calls pop language: "the catchwords, phrases, inflections, and quickie concepts that Americans seem unable to communicate without." Terms that rely on inflection (Hel-lo?! for example) are well represented, and Savan carefully explains how inflection can change meaning ("whatever" versus "what-ever"). Pop language has increased mightily over the years, the author explains, thanks in large part to the increasing ubiquity of advertising and the resulting clamor for more eye-catching, brain-catching pop phrases (like "Whassup!"). At once an examination of modern pop language--and, by extension, pop culture--and a rumination on our often-mindless acceptance of dumbed-down forms of expression, the book is sure to make readers a little more conscious of what comes out of their mouths. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf (October 4, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375402470
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375402470
  • Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #795,334 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Leslie Savan
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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
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17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT Return, October 11, 2005
By book lover (new york, ny) - See all my reviews
For years I was a fan of Savan's ad column in the Village Voice. She had a startling way of zeroing in on culture through the prism of advertisements: she was shrewd, funny, wonderfully insightful. She could draw my attention to cultural foibles I'd never recognized before, but that then became unmistakable. Now here she is in this book, all those things again, and more. I love that this time, she's appraising culture through pop language. What better way to go???? While I was reading this, I kept finding myself thinking, Yes! Exactly! Savan has vision, voice and heart. This is a really good book.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Usual Great Stuff, October 16, 2005
By Marc Cooper (Woodland Hills, CA) - See all my reviews
"Yessss!" I say pumping my fist jaggedly into the air. Leslie Savan is one of our smartest critics and her new book crackles with the predictable dosage of both biting wit and sharp insight. It's a merciless tear-down of, um like, the way we talk nowadays. And if you think the way we talk doesn't directly influence the WAY we think, or don't think, then you're just plain wrong. During the 1990's, Savan's columns in the Village Voice were a must-read. Never saw anything like them before nor since. And while you're waiting to see a new series from her, take a read of Slam Dunks and hope to hell you're not reading about yourself! Either way, you're gonna love ot.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Dynamite and it rocks, December 17, 2006
Okay all you ignorami out there, listen up. So you've had a bad hair day and the axis of evil is on your case. You've been there and done that big time. You've kicked Major Buttski, and whatever, and it only hurts when you laugh (your foot, that is). You've seen men and women behaving badly and you've been behind the eight ball. Despair not. Get a life not a library card because the real deal lingo is going down in your part of town--well, in this book.

Descriptive grammarians unite! Push those old fuddy-duddies out the door. This voluptuous volume of edible prose is da bomb! It is finger lickin good to linguists and lexicographers and cultural anthropologists on the make. And all you old stuffy school marms and proscriptive grammarian types, "Don't even THINK about telling me I don't THINK so." (Actually a title of one of the chapters in this oh so delectable wordsmith's book of manna from heaven.)

All right, enough.

When as an undergraduate I first heard Bob Dylan--well, when I first parsed his lyrics--it occurred to me that this man sings in cliches! (I'm resisting a "duh" here.) This is NOT poetry was what my English major mind thought. And then when I was one and twenty (I was so much older then) it occurred to me that Dylan was using not words themselves to make up his poetic lines, but groups or phrases of words, of cliches, the words we all use and hear day in and day out, and THAT was the basis of his lyrical poetry.

Wow, talk about your enlightenments! Anyway, what culture critic and word spinner deluxe Leslie Savan has done in this book is something akin to that. She has taken the phrases of pop language (as she calls it) and turned an examination of those phrases into a lexicographer's search for the derivation of terms. As all lovers of dictionaries know, you can learn a lot about history, sociology, psychology and such by just studying the dictionary. Well, Savan has learned a lot about the pop culture from studying its expressions. There is a psychology behind "yo, dude!"; there is a sociology contained in "like, you know, make my day"; there is a biology behind the f-word; there is some economics in "do the math"; and some history in "plausible deniability."

One of the reasons I am able to grab hold of these pop phrases so easily is that Savan has provided an index that, well, lists them (or most of them) by page number. Because Savan is an expert on advertising and the media, having written a column on the same for The Village Voice for many years, she just naturally has bouncing around in her head all matter of cliches and pop sounds from the powerful mavens of media who try to tell us what to buy, how to dress and what to think.

But she doesn't stop there. One of the chapters is on "digital talk," the words and phrases, "initialisms" and acronyms from emails and emessaging, from computerland and the Web, like "fresh, squeezed words," e.g., IMHO, LOTFLMAO, OMG, wtf? (caps optional or used WHEN SHOUTING!), the now ancient and soon to be forgotten WYSIWYG, and the fifteen minutes of fame tag, J. Lo.

Another chapter is on black pop that becomes white pop that becomes "said all over"--Ebonics and hip hop and whassup with that--you know what I'm saying? There are footnotes at the end of the book and a bibliography that includes people like Steven Pinker, Desmond Morris and Mark Twain, but not George Orwell. How he would have loved this book! Ditto for H. L. Mencken and Ambrose Bierce.

Some reviewers have tried to trivialize Savan's work, but look at it this way: her publisher is Alfred A. Knopf and you know they are as high brow and deadly serious as publishers can get.

Bottom line: this is an important work on American culture and language not to be missed, and a lot of fun to read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Hel-LO!
I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I just found a lot of it to be, like, lame! Savan has some good points but she repeats herself so much, drowning every sentence in... Read more
Published on August 30, 2006 by Brian J. Oneill

2.0 out of 5 stars This book is a No-Brainer
If the author spent a few hours deciding on a clear purpose for this book she might have had something more readable. Read more
Published on April 5, 2006 by Jmark2001

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Fun Read!!!!
Not only did I delight audibly in Ms Savan's original thinking and many colorful stories, so did my 13-yr-old son! Read more
Published on January 14, 2006 by NormaJean Thompson

5.0 out of 5 stars This is your brain on pop words
Leslie Savan's new book on language gives you countless and sudden insights into the linguistic water in which we are all swimming almost all of the time. Read more
Published on December 18, 2005 by W. Rosenthal

5.0 out of 5 stars You Are What You Say
If language is our window on the world, Savan's book is an economy size bottle of Windex. With wit and style, and oh-so-much substance, Savan illuminates the secret world of... Read more
Published on November 12, 2005 by Allen St John

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and insightful look at Pop Language
Savan's new book is unexpectedly hilarious, while it explores the cultural origins of many current catch-phrases and popular expressions. Read more
Published on November 11, 2005 by K. Jon Klein

5.0 out of 5 stars Should Be Taught In High School
This book is must reading for high school teachers and students who need to relearn the English language from the bottom up.
Published on November 4, 2005 by Helen

5.0 out of 5 stars The First Shot in Winning OUr Language Back
Think of this book as a key to getting a handle on one of the mysteries of contemporary culture and the fast changing use of slang and language.
Published on October 22, 2005 by C. Paikert

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading
I can see why right wingers are so afraid of this book: it undermines much of the basis for the language that they use and which perpetuates their kind of society. Read more
Published on October 17, 2005 by Richard Rogers

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Funny
Slam Dunks and No-Brainers is smart, funny and, in a world where so many of us just want to hear our "talking points" echoed back to us, original. Read more
Published on October 16, 2005 by John Katz

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