Steven Poole (1) (1972–)

This book is for all those who have had to sit through a meeting where some management whizz kid is spouting forth the latest acronyms and buzz words and not only do you have no idea what he is talking about, but you are not sure if he is even referring the the same things that you are.

Poole has taken the brave step of listing these words, and trying to make some sense of their meaning, which frankly in some cases there isn't any sense behind them. A number of them are borrowed from military vernacular, and as you can imagine make the transfer to the language of a middle ranking executive dealing with stationary...

He has written it with a healthy dollop of cynicism, and really does not hold back on the sarcasm either! There are some laugh out loud moments too.

Next time a road warrior gives you a cold eye view and asks you to hit the ground running you might, just might, know what he is talking about.… (more)

While reading this book, I realized I've read several "thinking about how we think" books and have accordingly added a shelf for them.

Refreshing read on revival of ideas though the author would probably point out it's not particularly new to revive ideas or reconsider them. Some positives mentioned- ideas that were only rethought when missing components were found (Lamarkianism & epigenetics), ideas that act as a placeholder stepping stone to other ideas (dark matter in physics), but also negative consequences (flat Earth believers, homeopathy, etc.)… (more)

Steven Poole is a cunning linguist.

He disses George Orwell, just to make himself look better, then admits with fake modesty that he's no expert and just a close reader.

He quotes Noam Chomsky, disingenously and out of context, just to make Chomsky look like a dick.

He then sets up straw-man arguments so that he can, oh so cleverly, knock them down.

He sets himself the incredibly hard task of taking apart the words of such noted thinkers, intellectuals and luminaries as George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice.

Our governments are lying to us and use language to hide it. Who knew? Who knew.

Some earlier chapters are excellent and persuasive. But often, despite agreeing with the premise of the book, I found myself irritated by Poole's grating tone of smugness.

He goes off-the-rails at the end, focusing in later chapters almost exclusively on the war on terror.

Even though this is where we should care most, and his arguments should be strongest, he goes to town with smugness and pushes his own arguments to silly, contorted, linguistic extremes.

I agree wholeheartedly with the original premise of the book. But he's guilty of using the very tricks and devices he decries "them" for using.

A book that seeks to expose Unspeak ends up full of it.
It's at the service or humour and political analysis rather than mass murder, of course, but still bullshit and still annoying.

Literary journalism is an oxymoron.

Steven Poole is well-and-truly full of it — and full of himself.

He reviewed reviews of his book on the Unspeak website and his tone is the same there.

Admittedly, I laughed that he quoted Alistair Campbell's dismissive review of his book, as ""Crap from start to finish", on the front cover of his book.

I've delibereately just blurted out my thoughts rather than write up a proper review — the last thing I want is this guy reading what I've said about his book and sending me footnotes.

I'm glad that I read it but I was also glad when I'd finished.

Please let me never be sat next to this man at a dinner party.

Ok, I admit, I'm just annoyed that he slagged off Orwell and Chomsky.… (more)