William Safire
What we don't need to know for achievement, we need to know for our pleasure. Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight.
Never assume the obvious is true.
To communicate, put your words in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction; a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine; a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine; a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate; a glutton embraces the white porcelain altar, or, more plainly, he barfs.
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
- All from William Safire
About: William Safire was born at New York City on 17 Dec in 1929. He attended public school at The Bronx, graduating from Bronx High School of Science in 1947. He dropped out after two years Syracuse University, but was later asked to give a commencement address and now serves as a trustee. After service in the Army he worked in public relations, then joined Nixon's White House staff as a speech writer. (Agnew's line, "nattering nabobs of negativism" was from one of Safire's speeches.) Many were appalled when the noted conservative joined the New York Times as a political commentator in 1973, but many were delighted when his "On Language" column began in 1979. He is a master of the English language.
Never assume the obvious is true.
To communicate, put your words in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce.
The most successful column is one that causes the reader to throw down the paper in a peak of fit.
After eating, an epicure gives a thin smile of satisfaction; a gastronome, burping into his napkin, praises the food in a magazine; a gourmet, repressing his burp, criticizes the food in the same magazine; a gourmand belches happily and tells everybody where he ate; a glutton embraces the white porcelain altar, or, more plainly, he barfs.
Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care.
- All from William Safire
About: William Safire was born at New York City on 17 Dec in 1929. He attended public school at The Bronx, graduating from Bronx High School of Science in 1947. He dropped out after two years Syracuse University, but was later asked to give a commencement address and now serves as a trustee. After service in the Army he worked in public relations, then joined Nixon's White House staff as a speech writer. (Agnew's line, "nattering nabobs of negativism" was from one of Safire's speeches.) Many were appalled when the noted conservative joined the New York Times as a political commentator in 1973, but many were delighted when his "On Language" column began in 1979. He is a master of the English language.
posted by think_free at 10:30 PM
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