In The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby writes about the debasement of the nation’s speech, the blurring of clarity, and intellectual discrimination. This book, her eighth, is scholarly and well-reasoned with fitting examples of fuzzy language. I knew I’d agree with her premise but I didn’t expect the book to be funny. As important as her points are, this isn’t a hard book to slog through. Instead it’s witty and gives one food for thought. I’ve only just begun reading but had to tell you about it. One example:

“Consider the near-universal substitution, by the media and politicians, of “troop” and “troops” for “soldier” and “soldiers.” As every dictionary makes plain, the word “troop” is always a collective noun; the “s” is added when referring to a particularly large military force. Yet each night on the television news, correspondents report that “X troops were killed in Iraq today.” This is more than a grammatical error; turning a soldier—an individual with whom one may identify—into an anonymous-sounding troop encourages the public to think about war and its casualties in a more abstract way. Who lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Troop?”