William Safire, "a college dropout and proud of it, a public relations go-getter who set up the famous Nixon-Khrushchev 'kitchen debate' in Moscow, and a White House wordsmith in the tumultuous era of war in Vietnam, Nixon's visit to China and the gathering storm of the Watergate scandal, which drove the president from office," died yesterday at the age of 79. I'm having a hard time coming up with anything nice to say about him, so I will just mention that I once heard him make a joke about how the first Monday in October (the beginning of the annual Supreme Court term) was conservatives' real Daylight Savings Time, since that's when they had a chance to turn back the clock. Which I guess is kind of funny if you think about how true it is. Anyway, the man is dead.
Monday, September 28, 2009
14
In a world gone to complete hell, here's to one guy that didn't split infinitives, use contractions, end sentences with a preposition, or forget a nice word for any politician he had had a meeting with.
"...end sentences with a preposition, or forget a nice word for any politician he had had a meeting with."
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.
Seriously, the "rules" about not ending sentences with prepositions or splitting infinitives are perscriptive BS, made up by fuddy-duddies who wanted to make English more like Latin, for some reason, and not reflective of how English is or was ever actually spoken. Safire's treatment of language was actually significantly smarter than that, usually.
It's still awesome to toast him with an incorrect "that" instead of a "who," a split infinitive, contractions, and a sentence ending with a preposition. Because no matter what you say, that sentence would have irked him.
And most prescriptive grammar rules are stupid if they are enforced uniformly but sensible and make writing more readable if they are employed in most situations.
A fitting metaphorical door to hit this man's ass on the way out would've been a wave of language-mangling tweets spreading the news of his passing. Alas, Safire- hardly a txt msg- or tweet-worthy death. Goodby, sir. Eff tha h8rs. U were 2 beautiful 4 this world that u lived in.
Is the Annum of Expiration a real phenomenon, or is it a result of a) populations keep rising, b)baby boomers are old, c) there are more famous people as standards for fame drop, and d) other news has been slow? Are we in for a twenty-year cascade of notable passings?
God I hope so.
Kiss-in-ger! Kiss-in-ger!
NO. he needs to live to be charged, despised and discredited. Death and the accolades now is too good for him.
Abe, dress him up like a 13-year-old girl and stick him in a dimly lit room with Polanski?
No, I want to punish him not Polanski.
Why the alliteration all the sudden? Oh is it a joke on Safire?
A little part of me wants Bruni to take over On Language when he goes to the magazine.
Born in 1929. Not a Baby Boomer by any stretch of the imagination.
Point taken, though I meant to address the phenomenon at large, rather than Safire in particular.