William Safire
William Safire
William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 December 1929
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
writing nouns use
Why use a modifier to set straight a not-quite-right noun when the right noun is available?
writing mean two
Cast aside any column about two subjects. It means the pundit chickened out on the hard decision about what to write about that day.
writing long use
It behooves us to avoid archaisms. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
reading writing thinking
By elevating your reading, you will improve your writing or at least tickle your thinking.
writing cutting thinking
If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts.
care caused ignorance speech
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care
looking perform
She would take it and perform a typographical miracle. It was like looking at an E. E. Cummings page.
babies forget phrase shares
The phrase "New World Order" is Bush's baby, even if he shares its popularization with Gorbachev. Forget the Hitler 'new order' root; F.D.R. used the phrase earlier.
confined engaged minds stop worrying
Stop worrying about the 'dumbing down' of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a 'race to the bottom' of the page by little minds confined to little words.
american-journalist
I think we all have a need to know what we do not need to know.
action attack choice critics current describe harbor led military necessity official pearl response unwise vietnam war wars
Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.
adjective compound noun phrase straw wizard
The noun phrase straw man, now used as a compound adjective as in 'straw-man device, technique or issue,' was popularized in American culture by 'The Wizard of Oz.'
academia answer brought call fellowship good henry neither nor partner related teammate
What do you call a co-worker these days? Neither teammate nor confederate will do, and partner is too legalistic. The answer brought from academia to the political world by Henry Kissinger and now bandied in the boardroom is colleague. It has a nice upper-egalitarian feel, related to the good fellowship of collegial.
electronic pundits responding targeted
When infuriated by an outrageous column, do not be suckered into responding with an abusive e-mail. Pundits so targeted thumb through these red-faced electronic missives with delight, saying 'Hah! Got to 'em.'